The Athletic

The Race is on, and Daniel Ricardo, may be the most successful free agents on the F1 driver market,

but his hopes of being on the grid next year appear to be receding.

So what are the chances of a race seat for the Australian, and could a sabbatical, retirement, or even a reserve driver role, be his best option? I'm Ed Straw and joining us to answer those questions and more are Ben Anderson and Claire Cottingham. Well, Claire, welcome back to the Race F1 podcast. For those who don't know, Claire is a regular in the F1 paddock for racefans.net. Settled back into normality after the spa, Zanvort, Monser triple. It was a bit wild, wasn't it? It was a long journey. I drove over to spa, then drove back, then drove over to Zanvort, then flew back, then flew over to Monser and flew back through Italian strikes. So we had a journey

for sure. But it was good. It was, it's nice to be home, but it's always fun to be out and about.

Yeah, I was on the same flight as you back and it was not a pleasant arrival time, was it? It was

very much in the small hours. And Ben Anderson, you're something of a Daniel Ricardo

specialist. You covered

his antics extensively, not just in Formula One, but as far back I think as British F3. So,

feeling quite well qualified for this one. Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, I've known Daniel since 2009. He came

to do British Formula 3 as it was. Obviously, that championship no longer exists.

And stayed in touch since.

Yeah, followed his F1 progress, obviously,

and declined this year and last year, sadly.

So, yeah, let's get into it.

Excited for this discussion.

Yeah, well, there's a great topic to get into.

So let's not delay. Claire, well, there's a great topic to get into, so let's not delay.

Claire, considering Daniel Ricardo has been a top F1 driver for so long, the 18 Grand Prix,

you surprised he's not a bigger player in the driver market, given there are some reasonable seats available? Yeah, there are some reasonable seats. Obviously, we've seen a bit of silly season

over the last couple of weeks, but he still has a chance at maybe Williams, obviously Nicholas Latifie, there's some reasonable seats. Obviously, we've seen a bit of silly season over the last couple of weeks,

but he still has a chance at maybe Williams. Obviously, Nicholas Latifie, there's lots of talk about his seat being up for grabs, maybe even Haas was Schumacher, of course, and maybe, you know, even Alpine, if we see a change of heart from the bosses there, let's not even kind of go down that saga with Oscar Piastri, moving over to McLaren and all sorts.

...