{"id":558315,"date":"2026-03-23T04:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/558315\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T04:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:02:11","slug":"daniel-ricciardo-no-3-curse-hits-red-bull-racing-max-verstappen-after-shocking-start-to-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/558315\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo No.3 curse hits Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen after shocking start to season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Formula 1<\/a> fans were initially moved to see a piece of Daniel Ricciardo<\/a>‘s legacy live on in the paddock.<\/p>\n

When Max Verstappen announced he would be adopting the iconic No.3<\/a> for the 2026 season, no-one expected a curse to come along with it.<\/p>\n

But now, fans are calling for Verstappen<\/a> to drop the famous number as a string of lacklustre results have followed the Dutchman and suggest an unwanted pattern could be at play.<\/p>\n

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\"Number<\/p>\n

Number three has been in the Red Bull family with Ricciardo during his F1 career. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The four-time world champion had a huge crash in qualifying in Australia<\/a>, which saw him start at the back of the grid and recover to sixth place, while in China, Verstappen posted a DNF result<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eagle-eyed fans on X started to see the pattern emerge after Verstappen had a disqualification in his recent GT3 outing due to a behind-the-scenes tyre mistake at the Nurburgring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The eerie similarities begin from when Ricciardo, in 2014, took Dale Earnhardt’s number and had a DSQ and DNF in his first three races of using the number.<\/p>\n

He was disqualified from the season opener in Melbourne after a fuel flow infringement, then DNF’d from Malaysia and finished fourth in China.<\/p>\n

With only two places different in the pattern, fans are hoping Verstappen can shake off any “curses” and join the fight with front-runners Mercedes<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n

But after the Dutchman’s unsavoury comments about the new cars this season<\/a>, this seems unlikely. <\/p>\n

Ricciardo has long honoured icons of motorsport<\/a> in his career.<\/p>\n

He used Earnhardt’s number in Formula 1 and recently brought out a “Backyard Grand Prix” clothing line with his brand Enchante that features cars from both Allan Moffat and Peter Brock’s illustrious careers in Australian national categories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

Daniel Ricciardo has frequently highlighted other motorsport icons during his career. \u00a0Enchante<\/p>\n

It seems the Honey Badger’s old digits aren’t providing their usual magic and Verstappen will be looking to break the streak in Suzuka<\/a> to prove that the number doesn’t make the driver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most Formula 1 fans were initially moved to see a piece of Daniel Ricciardo‘s legacy live on in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-558315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}