Daniel Ricciardo's F1 legacy goes far beyond Grand Prix victories and podium finishes

I've been thinking about legacy over the past few months.

Growing older has a similar effect on a person. Children grow, parents grow older, and one day you look in the mirror and don't recognize the person standing in front of you. Gone is the young college freshman, or the newly minted professional ready to take on the world. Instead, staring back at you is a middle-aged man with more wrinkles than he cares to admit, more gray hair than he cares to admit, and a lingering thought about what he will leave behind.

Mortality happens to all of us, but athletes experience two endings in a way. There is one at the end of this journey we call life, which is common to all of us, but there is the other when your time in a sport, a sport you have loved from the moment you started, comes to an end. Few, if any, athletes experience that end in the best possible way. Few can quit at the top, at the peak of their sport.

For most, the end is all the more painful when they begin to realize – or finally accept – that their time is over.

In my case, my football career officially ended on a Saturday in November in Middletown, Connecticut, on the day of my final college football game. In reality, however, the end had come much earlier, when my body, bruised by more than a decade of playing, stopped responding the way I wanted it to, and my shoulder, weakened by thousands – if not millions – of passes, was mangled on the inside and had no strength left.

And I lost a spot in the rankings to another young college freshman who would have loved to take my place.

At this moment, you also wonder what your sporting legacy will be as you try to avert the inevitable end that you know is coming.

Today, the Red Bull organization announced that there will be a change in the Visa Cash App RB F1 team. Liam Lawson will drive alongside Yuki Tsunoda.

Daniel Ricciardo is out, leaving behind a career full of race wins, memorable moments and perhaps much more.

An even greater legacy.

So many stories have been written and so much said about the rise in popularity of Formula 1, especially in the United States. Inevitably, the arrows point back to the Netflix documentary series Drive to survive as a starting point, as the series took fans old and new behind the scenes and into a world that was previously inaccessible. Older fans were given a deeper look into the strategy and machinations behind the pit wall, while newer fans were introduced to the personalities, exotic locations and splendor of one of the fastest sports in the world.

The first season of Drive to survivethat took the series from a Netflix curiosity to a global phenomenon? It focused primarily on Ricciardo, the end of his days at Red Bull and his shocking decision to leave the team and join Renault for the 2019 season. His trademark smile and gigantic personality dominated the first season and set the stage for the series' popularity and the sport's growth.

This fateful decision was perhaps the moment when Ricciardo's racing legacy – in terms of his success on the track – took a turn. He left an up-and-coming team with seven Grand Prix wins behind to bet on Renault. But after two seasons and just two podiums with Renault, Ricciardo moved again, this time to McLaren.

Although Ricciardo once again climbed to the top step of the podium in the Papaya, winning the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, this appears to have been his last day in the sun and his last F1 podium.

Ricciardo may gain more racing experience. His popularity around the world and especially in the US could allow him to move to the IndyCar or even NASCAR racing series, where the fans – and the sport itself – would welcome him with open arms. After trying his hand at commentating last season, The grandstand with Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnetthis personality and character translated perfectly to his work in front of the camera.

Or, as his former teammate Max Verstappen put it before the Singapore Grand Prix, he could simply live on the farm in Australia.

Whatever Ricciardo does next, he leaves behind a racing legacy full of glorious moments in the spotlight that puts him in the class of F1 drivers: a multiple race winner. A legacy that will see him go down in history as one of the sport's bravest brakemen, willing to put everything on the line at every corner.

But his story, his legacy, has more to offer than these achievements. He also opened the door to millions of new fans of the sport and was the spark that drove the global growth of Formula 1 through the vehicle that Driving to survive. He helped introduce the sport to a new generation of fans and encouraged the growth of Formula 1 in countries like the United States, which now hosts three races each season with the best drivers in the world.

He even helped spawn a new generation of content creators by giving them the idea, the promise and the hope that they too could be part of this amazing world. One of them was a former athlete who went on to participate in a completely different sport after his playing days.

Many athletes leave behind stories that they want to tell after their sporting careers: stories of victories, of successes, of moments in the spotlight.

Few can leave their sport behind after excelling and helping to make it a global phenomenon.

This is also Daniel Ricciardo’s legacy.