JF: I saw a great video of Johnny Rutherford, who in our country for a period of time was the IndyCar driver. And he was asked once, how did you know when it was the right time to retire? And his answer was fascinating for me. It's something I think about almost daily in my job ... And I wanted to ask you about your retirement at a personal level. How did it work for you? What gave you the idea this is the right time?
DR: Look, I definitely had to try and understand a lot the last 12 months about the career coming to an end. And it's timing, because you know you're not really going to get it back, once it's gone it's gone for the most part. 2022, I struggled a lot my second year at McLaren. They let me go. Then 2023, I started without a seat and that was like, I was kind of, is this maybe it? Like, do I just call it now? But I knew there was still some burning desire in me.
JF: And we all wanted you to race. We're all Daniel Ricciardo fans. Like, who didn't want you to race again and win again? Everyone, all of us wanted that to happen.
DR: I appreciate it. And that's where I really needed to try and look at myself in the mirror. And it was like, okay, forget what the people say and what they want, It's what do you want?
JF: And was that pretty much a personal thing?
DR: Yeah. I tried to make it as obviously personal as possible. Look, there's still obviously opinions, even if it's your parents or whatever. But ultimately, I did my best to make sure that there was still that fire inside my gut. But then I got back into the seat halfway through the season. Second or third race in I broke my hand, and it was such a nothing accident, but I missed however many races - I think I was out for 10 weeks or something. So that happened and I was like well I've never really hurt myself racing all these years and I have a silly crash and I was like okay is this now a bit of a sign, like should I just quit while I'm ahead nearly and I was like, no, there's still unfinished business and I pushed through it.
And look, I lasted another year in F1 and then got, ultimately got let go. That was the reality at the time. But I think once that happened, I'd been let go twice in the last two years. And it had also taken a lot out of me. I'd put a lot of my soul into it, and I did feel pretty exhausted by it. In reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me. I think it would have been hard to be like I'm done. Not so much for me, I think I knew I was probably done because I knew that it was harder for me to perform at the level I could. Okay, Alonso and these guys are still in their forties in F1 competing very highly. For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something and it's okay to admit it. It's fine.
JF: What advice would you give for the rest of us? Who at some point in our life, either someone's going to tap us on the shoulder or we have to do it ourselves.
DR: It's easier said than done, but remove any fairy tales. Ultimately, remove your ego as much as possible. There's people that love you and will still tell you that you're great and you can do it. But as much as you love them as well, you need to just close the door and make that decision on your own and be really honest with yourself. If I would have got to the end of last year, I think I would have still had a lot of these thoughts and had the conversation with myself, because I knew it was becoming harder for me and I had to dig really deep to pull out a result that I was proud of. You always want to believe everyone's looking out for you and they probably still are, but they don't know what it's like to be you and in your situation. So I would just stress, like, give yourself enough alone time to really like, you'll get the answer, if you find time, you'll get it, you know? And last year, so my retirement year, I gave myself a lot of time to just reflect on my career, to be at peace with it. And if I was constantly surrounded by people, I never would have had that. So yeah, go for a long old hike.
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