![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/287093\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRicciardo, 36, is part of the Ford family after becoming a global racing ambassador following his F1 exit.<\/p>\n
The Australian\u2019s link to the brand was built around his long-standing interest in Ford\u2019s Raptor line.<\/p>\n
Ricciardo said at the time of the announcement that his \u201cracing days are behind me\u201d, but teased last year that \u201cthe itch for Baja is there\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Mexican desert race is among a smorgasbord of off-road events in which Ford is heavily involved.<\/p>\n
Ricciardo has already driven Ford\u2019s M-Sport Raptor T1+ through his ambassador role, giving him a taste of the machinery used at Baja.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll he wanted to talk about when we first met him was Raptors,\u201d said Rushbrook during a Monaco Grand Prix event hosted by The Race and Axios.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe owned a Raptor before he had a partnership with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce he stepped out of the car, he was thinking about the next steps of what he could do and what he wanted to do, and what we were trying to do with Raptors \u2013 to sell Raptors through Formula 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may not make sense, right, these incredible off-road trucks that we\u2019re selling to Formula 1 fans \u2013 [but] Daniel was 100 percent into that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just genuine passion. We had him at Raptor Rally, jumping trucks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe smile on his face \u2013 I know he\u2019s always smiling \u2013 but it got even bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s ready to compete yet, but hopefully someday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rushbrook also spoke of wanting to facilitate opportunities for Ricciardo\u2019s former teammate Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
While the Red Bull F1 team is now partnered with Ford, Verstappen\u2019s GT3 racing adventures have so far come with Mercedes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love the fact that Max is just an out-and-out racer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all he wants to do is get in and compete and win, whether it\u2019s virtual racing or Formula 1 or sportscar racing like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have that ladder from a spec racing car to a Mustang GT4 to a Mustang GT3, and now a hypercar coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019d love, when it\u2019s right for him and right for us, to have that relationship in sportscar racing as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo. Image: XPB Images Ricciardo, 36, is part of the Ford family after becoming a global racing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,827,817,7604,813,816,63274,825,12357,85],"class_list":["post-731306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-ford","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mark-rushbrook","tag-max-verstappen","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731306","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=731306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ford](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/XPB_1304258_HiRes.jpg\")