Daniel Ricciardo says the Indianapolis 500 scares the s*** out of him, and he means it as a compliment. The eight-time grand prix winner will make his first trip to the Indy 500 at the end of May, a race he has long admired from a distance and now says he cannot wait to see in person.
Ricciardo made the comments on Conor Daly’s Speed Street podcast ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500, saying he has been talking for years about how much the race unsettles him. “I’ve said it for many years, it scares the s*** out of me. It’s freaking awesome,” he said, adding that he has probably never been more excited since he was a kid to go to a race and just be a fan. He said there was never a debate in his mind that Formula 1 was better than other racing series, only a boyhood desire to reach F1 because he was a fan of Ayrton Senna.
The trip comes after Ricciardo retired from Formula 1 following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix and was replaced by Liam Lawson at RB. He has said he needed time away from racing after that exit to figure out who he is away from the cockpit, and the Indianapolis visit is part of that reset. He said he went to Daytona for the first time at the end of last year and came away reminded that some things have to be seen physically, including the Daytona banking and the Indy 500. “That’s how I feel with the Indy 500,” he said.
For Ricciardo, the move from Formula 1 circuit racing to standing inside one of motorsport’s biggest ovals is less about comparison than perspective. He has spent years respecting the race without ever attending it, and now he is heading to Indianapolis with the kind of curiosity that only comes after a career has paused. The question is not whether the Indy 500 will live up to the hype; it is how many things, in person, will leave him looking back at the sport he left with a different eye.
Related: Bobby Rahal documentary debuts Friday as 1986 Indy 500 win nears 40 years.
