The premature end to Daniel Ricciardo’s grand prix racing career will go down as a case of what not to do for Formula 1 teams facing similar conundrums with Formula 1 stars.

The Singapore Grand Prix, Ricciardo’s last in motorsport’s top echelon, dragged on in a haze of innuendo and speculation, with rumours abounding all week that he was set to be axed from the team just two months after being told he’d see out the season.

Red Bull management did nothing to ease the tension, allowing the situation to fester while Ricciardo withered on the vine as events overtook him.

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The team stuck steadfastly to the script that decisions on its driver line-up would be made after the race.

But it was disingenuous. Certainly Liam Lawson, his replacement, wasn’t subjected to the same uncertainty.

“I knew about it for the last probably two weeks,” Lawson told New Zealand’s Newstalk ZB after his F1 promotion became public.

“It had been the plan for a long time now, where this was where it was leading.

“I had a contract date that that needed to be fulfilled. Basically it was going towards this way, and then a couple of weeks ago basically they told me this is what was going to happen, and then basically not long after that it was basically set in stone.”

That Lawson had a cut-off date to be made an offer had become common knowledge in the paddock this year. It was part of the deal to keep him sweet on the sidelines while Red Bull figured out how to play its driver conundrum. The date reportedly ticked over on the weekend of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

But it had been on the cards for far longer for even longer than that, with the Kiwi revealing his 2024 private testing program had been designed to evaluate whether he could be plugged into the team at short notice.

“They were all evaluation days, and they were designed to put lots of pressure on me,” he said. “It was for an event like this, to throw me in — a bit like last year.

“To throw me in mid-season they needed to know that obviously I’d somewhat perform. They were definitely evaluation days.”

Evidently a plan to place Lawson at RB had been in the works for some time, setting up a trigger to fire Ricciardo.

It was pulled sometime between Lawson’s option being taken up and Ricciardo’s last race in Singapore.

It’s a shame no-one seemed to tell the Australian he was in the gun.

PIT TALK PODCAST: After a week of speculation, Red Bull has confirmed Daniel Ricciardo has raced in his last grand prix, with Liam Lawson set to take the wheel from the next race in Austin. Where did it go wrong for the Aussie’s comeback, and was he dealt with too harshly in the end?

WHAT DID RICCIARDO KNOW WHEN?

Lawson’s understanding of the chronology of events appears to contradict the impression Ricciardo gave of what he knew when.

On Thursday in Singapore the Australian was certain that the decision being speculated about pertained only to 2025, not to the rest of the year.

“My first expectation is [it will be] about next year,” he said, per The Race. “That’s where I’m at at the moment.

“Basically, I do expect a yes or a no for 2025.

“I’m aware of some talk and speculation about the rest of the season. That, at the moment, I’m unaware of.”

He acknowledged that an in-season change couldn’t be discounted, but it hadn’t been formally raised, even if Ricciardo would have understood that the risk to him seeing out the season was more than just theoretical.

It wasn’t until Saturday night, having been knocked out in 16th — eight places behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda — that his demeanour changed.

By Sunday night the writing was on the wall, but when he left the Singapore paddock, his future was still unconfirmed.

“I’m aware it could be it,” he said emotionally after the race. “I’m also just exhausted after the race.

“There’s a flood of many emotions and feelings and exhaustion. The cockpit is something that I got very used to for many years. I just wanted to savour the moment.”

It took until Thursday for the team to announce the Australian was being hauled out of the car.

Asked by Motorsport Total why Ricciardo had been allowed to languish for so long without a definite answer about his career, Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko was vague, claiming only that he’d been told before the race.

“[The timing] was related to a variety of factors and obligations,” he said. “He was informed, and the worthy farewell performance was, I think, the fastest lap.”

That followed Marko having said earlier in the weekend that a deeply unlikely podium could change the direction of Ricciardo’s future.

“You can’t just go from one race to another,” Ricciardo responded at the time, per ESPN. “That’s not okay.”

The differences between the various accounts seem to amount to the vibe. There appears to be a belief that Ricciardo should have seen the inevitable coming, but writing on the wall isn’t the same as writing on a contract.

Given how chaotically Red Bull has handled its driver program this year — only two months earlier Ricciardo had been in line to replace Sergio Pérez, only for Red Bull to stick with the Mexican at RBR and commit to Ricciardo for the rest of the season — how could Ricciardo have assumed anything based on a feeling when no-one appeared willing to give him a straight answer?

‘A proper great Aussie drongo bloke’ | 00:57

WHY WOULD THERE BE A DISCREPANCY?

Even if Ricciardo had been told ahead of the weekend to pack his bags, why not make it public?

For what purpose was it kept officially secret for another week before quietly ushering him out of the paddock via social media, depriving him of a swan-song race after a long and successful Formula 1 career?

Speaking in an interview Formel1.de about Ricciardo’s sacking — recorded before it was made official — Marko recounted his disappointment at the way the Australian had quit the team in the first place in 2018.

“We sat down together and actually came to an agreement sealed with a handshake,” he said. “He then drove to Salzburg and did the same thing there with [late Red Bull co-founder] Dietrich Mateschitz.

“[Mateschitz] attached great importance to keeping what he sealed with a handshake.”

Marko was Mateschitz’s right-hand man in Formula 1 until the energy drinks magnate’s death at the end of 2022, a seismic event in the brand’s F1 program that’s since kicked off years of internecine political warfare for internal control.

Marko added, however, that he hadn’t held a grudge against Ricciardo, as evidenced by the fact the Australian was welcomed back into the Red Bull family last year.

It should be noted, though, that Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner was the chief backer of Ricciardo’s comeback internally, with Marko having had to be swayed to bring him back onto the grid.

Marko was also the chief agitator for Lawson this year, with his influence crucial to the mid-season swap and believed to have been behind rumours earlier in the season that Ricciardo was on the ropes.

Apportioning Ricciardo’s poor treatment on his final weekend as a Formula 1 driver to a grudge would seem generous, however.

Ricciardo, after all, has contributed much to Red Bull, and Marko has spoken about hoping the Australian could become a Red Bull ambassador in his post-racing life once the dust settles on his Formula 1 career.

But that makes the entire situation only more bizarre. With so much shared history — almost entirely good —between team and driver, that it should end like this almost defies explanation.

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WHAT ABOUT LAWSON?

While it’s bad for Ricciardo, the Australian can at least process away from the spotlight.

Spare a thought for Lawson, who must now pick up the baton from this sorry saga and forge his own F1 career.

The disastrous communication around Ricciardo’s demise took its toll on him too.

“Not good, honestly,” Lawson told Newstalk ZB when asked how it felt being in the garage alongside Ricciardo knowing what was coming. “Singapore was definitely not an enjoyable weekend for me just because obviously we all knew what was coming.

“Daniel has always been very good to me in a lot of ways. When I drove last year and then even this season he’s always been somebody that — I’ve never felt in competition with him or anything like that; he never made it feel like that.

“It wasn’t a nice feeling.”

Lawson is blameless in Ricciardo’s downfall. While the 22-year-old has obviously been determined to get onto the grid, he’s done nothing underhanded in simply pursuing his Formula 1 dream by working hard behind the scenes and seizing his opportunities.

It’s not Lawson’s fault his arrival has coincided with this bitter internal Red Bull feud.

“I get one shot at F1, and it’s come now, and I’m obviously grateful for that opportunity, but I now need to take it with both hands,” he said. “[Ricciardo] said the same thing. He said, ‘You need to make the most of it’.”

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Arguably the most disappointing part of the saga hasn’t been that veteran Ricciardo has missed his farewell — the West Aussie will be remembered for the success he’s already achieved, not the way he was unceremoniously shunted aside.

It’s been that Red Bull hasn’t fulsomely celebrated Lawson’s arrival in the seat in his own right, having successfully traversed the junior formulae with the energy drinks brand to finally crack Formula 1.

“When I found out and I got to call everybody, the first words or the first things that they said — all of them, including my dad, my mum and everybody, all the sponsors behind me from day one, I could hear the relief in their voice before anything.

“It wasn’t excitement, it was just pure relief, which is also how I felt, to be honest, because it’s been obviously a huge journey, and a lot of people have put a lot into this. It was very exciting.”

Having new drivers on the grid is always exciting, particularly when Lawson is so clearly deserving of his chance.

The brutal reality of Formula 1 is that someone must always make way for the next generation to get their chance.

Ricciardo has been the beneficiary of that policy twice already. This time it was his turn to be the victim of this dog-eat-dog sport.