Ricciardo reveals he won't be on F1 grid in 2023, willing to wait for right seat

With Alpine and AlphaTauri filling their seats for next season, Daniel Ricciardo says he won’t race in Formula 1 in 2023.

Ricciardo and McLaren announced their split at the end of the Formula One season after a buyout was negotiated with the Australian on the final year of his contract.

Ricciardo held the option on 2023 for his seat at McLaren but his performance has been underwhelming through 35 races. Although he did score McLaren's first Formula One victory since 2012 with a win last September at Monza, Ricciardo has been outperformed by teammate Lando Norris nearly every race weekend.

McLaren signed Oscar Piastri for 2023 while Alpine opted to sign Pierre Gasly and Nyck de Vries joined AlphaTauri which left Ricciardo with limited options at the front of the grid.

Haas and Williams still have a second seat open for 2023, but Ricciardo is reportedly not interested in joining either team given their struggles to be competitive. The Australian is also not interested in racing in IndyCar or Nascar.

“Certainly the plan is still to be involved in F1, and this is kind of like just hitting pause for a little bit. That’s the way I see it as far as my F1 career goes. The full intention is for ’24," Ricciardo told Chris Medland of Racer. "Sure it could open up opportunities to maybe do some of that stuff but if I feel it’s going to deviate away from my target I would still say it’s not really where I’m looking.

“As cool as it sounds to compete in something else, the truth is mentally I’m not there yet. I’m still so engaged in this, and I think a bit of time off or out of a seat will probably do me good, so I would probably use that as opposed to trying to jump in something else and stay busy in a different category. So I would still say pretty convincingly it wouldn’t happen anywhere else.”

-With files from the Associated Press.