Former F1 champion instructs professional racing aspirants to follow Fernando Alonso instead of ‘smiling’ Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo is known as one of the most kind-hearted souls among the F1 drivers. His smile radiates positivity, even though he has gone through a lot of hardships during the past few years.

The Honey Badger’s smile has a blooming effect on the audience as well, who can feel his struggles hiding behind that smile. However, he recently came under criticism from Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 World Champion, for his smiling face.

Jacques Villeneuve throws shade at ‘smiling’ Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardio has never really complained about his struggles and is rather focused on the positive. He underwent major surgery after breaking the metacarpal in his left hand, which truly brought sorrow to his family. This also resulted in his being replaced by Oscar Piastri at McLaren last year.

Despite all of those constant hardships, Daniel was keen on recovering. Recently, he announced his comeback at the US Grand Prix, which everyone is excited about.

However, Jacques Villeneuve was not at all impressed with the Australian and commented that he was all about “smiling in commercials.”

He said: “I would ask kids who want to be drivers today – do you want it out of passion or because you want to be like Daniel Ricciardo, smiling in commercials?”

Villeneuve seemed to be more impressed by Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen: “I like what Sainz is doing, because he always improves and has always helped the teams he raced for. But drivers today are too protected, they should be left more free – even to make mistakes.

“It’s wrong to say Red Bull is unbeatable. The unbeatable one is Verstappen.

“His strength is that he was never a child – he was mature even when he was little. He was created to be a champion by a father who was very hard on him.

“The truth is that today, Max does not have a single weakness.”

Ricciardo set for F1 return at US GP

After, what felt like a decade, Daniel Ricciardo is finally coming back to the show on October 20th at the US Grand Prix. He also received a unique honour ahead of his US GP return.

Although the driver has a lot of lacking to fulfil, he is looking forward to having a heated battle with the third-time World Champion, Max Verstappen just like in the old days.

Do you think Daniel Ricciardo will be able to have a strong comeback in October? Do let us know in the comment section below.