Daniel Ricciardo (left, background) and teammate Max Verstappen (right, foreground) take to the COTA track during a practice session in October 2016. (Kent Kraft/For the Gazette)

As the checkered flag waves to mark the end of the F1 race this Sunday, it won’t matter what the order of drivers shows. Something will be missing.

The race takes place at Circuit of the Americas, or COTA, which is located well off the beaten path outside of Austin, Texas. How that location was chosen to build the first F1 dedicated racetrack in the United States in 2012 is beyond me. However, since that is an hour away from where my parents live, my wife and I attended the F1 race from 2013-19. So, one thing that will be missing from this year’s race is me, but that has no impact to my attention to the results.

Now former F1 racing driver Daniel Ricciardo will not be on the grid for the rest of this season as he was rather unceremoniously dumped by his team, RB, after the race in Singapore. Many had whispered Ricciardo’s lack of performance this season meant his time was running short, but I assumed that was idle speculation of those in search of stories. Unfortunately, more so for him than for me, it is reality and he is now without a drive in the pinnacle of motorsports.

To put things in perspective, Ricciardo is an eight-time race winner, was on the podium (meaning he finished in the top three positions) 32 times, had three pole positions (started the race in first place) and had 17 fastest laps of the race in 257 career starts. Nine of the twenty-two drivers who raced in Singapore have zero race wins. Eight of the remaining thirteen drivers had less wins than Ricciardo. Winning in F1 is a very challenging thing to do and usually a cultivated talent for a driver to bring to a team.

Maybe his exit has to do with age, that Ricciardo has lost a step? He is currently 35. That actually ties him for fourth oldest on the grid, shockingly. He is getting replaced by 22-year-old Liam Lawson and, next year, Mercedes is bringing in 18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli, so maybe age is a factor. Ricciardo himself mentioned there is something about current F1 technology that he isn’t connecting with in the same way that younger drivers are.

But, here’s the thing. Ricciardo, also called “Dani Ric” or sometimes “The Honey Badger,” was one of the few genuinely good personalities on the grid. He wore his emotions on his sleeve but a vast majority of the time, his emotion was pure, unadulterated joy. No one smiles as big as Dani Ric along the grid of F1. When most other drivers are complaining about every small transgression around them, Ricciardo was calm on the radio, matter-of-fact, and fair.

That was also how he raced other drivers, hard but fair. Seldom were the times Ricciardo didn’t finish a race because of an accident. Few drivers were as bravely late on the brakes as him meaning he had some stellar overtakes throughout his years of driving.

When Ricciardo started driving for Red Bull in 2014, he was partnered with four-time (consecutive, no less) world champion Sebastian Vettel. Vettel finished the season fifth in the driver’s championship, Ricciardo third. Vettel left the next season to join Ferrari. The first two seasons Ricciardo was paired with current champion Max Verstappen, he bested his younger teammate. While Red Bull didn’t have a very competitive car overall (2014-20 were years of utter dominance from Mercedes), Ricciardo and Verstappen were the most dynamic driving duo on the grid and always seemed like they were having fun.

I mentioned that earlier too, the look of pure unadulterated joy that came from Ricciardo’s smile. I always looked forward to an interview with Ricciardo after a race, and they were particularly entertaining when he made it to the podium. Those three drivers get a live interview in front of the fans celebrating their stellar performance, and starting in 2016, Ricciardo gave them something extra. Tradition is for champagne to be provided to the top three drivers and they usually spray the bubbly all over the place. Ricciardo took off one of his shoes, filled it up with champagne, and drank heartily.

Something else worth mentioning here: F1 drivers typically lose 3-4% of their body mass during a race, primarily through sweat. The shoes they’re wearing are fire retardant and do not breath well. While the idea of filling said shoe with any liquid at all that you’ll then drink sounds repulsive, I always got a kick out of his odd celebratory habit. His smile and enthusiasm were infectious which was on display as he got the interviewers to gulp down some champagne from his shoe along with him more often than not.

Interestingly, after the Singapore race, I was inclined to write a far different article looking at the unfair nature of Red Bull having their “junior team” of RB. The impetus here was that an RB driver who was well out of contention took on a new set of tires and got the fastest lap of the race as it was finishing. Fastest lap is now worth one bonus point to the driver that sets it, but only if they finish in the top 10 positions (meaning they scored points in the race already).

Before the RB driver took away the fastest lap at the end, McLaren’s Lando Norris had the fastest lap and would’ve taken yet another point out of the lead Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has. If it was Max’s teammate, Sergio Perez, that had put on the new tires and snagged fastest lap, I wouldn’t have the same issue with that. Red Bull is in a very unique and, one could argue, rule-bending position of having a “junior” team and a main team. None of the other teams have such an affiliation with one another.

When I saw the RB coming in to make a pitstop, I knew exactly what was going on and was unhappy with the situation. In a sport where championships have been decided on tie breakers and one-point margins, every point counts and this was a very underhanded way of depriving Norris of that point.

But, it was Daniel Ricciardo getting his final fast lap of his F1 career. Max Verstappen actually came on the radio and thanked Ricciardo (not that he could hear the other driver’s radio at the time, of course) for snagging the fastest lap. During the post-race interviews, Ricciardo was still smiling, but his eyes betrayed the solemn nature of the race result. Soon enough, it was confirmed RB was showing Ricciardo the door with six races left to go in this season. I’m still frustrated by the team dynamics with RB and Red Bull, but couldn’t make myself stay mad at Ricciardo for doing it.

F1 is an extremely competitive sport and it isn’t unheard of for a driver to be let go mid-season. There is something that just stings a bit for an eight-time race winner to be shown the door so unceremoniously. It will most likely be a long time before such an enigmatic persona is back in the sport, but at least we have the memories of all the shoeys.