This was never how Daniel Ricciardo’s Formula One career was supposed to end.

For a driver who once looked like a potential world champion and quickly won over fans through his affable nature and infectious personality, he deserved a proper send-off after 13 years on the grid.

Instead, he was left in limbo. To treat last Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix as, unofficially, his last grand prix, without any closure or a decision over whether he’d be back in Austin next month.

That didn’t arrive until Thursday, four days after Ricciardo had said what he anticipated would be his final farewells to the F1 paddock, when Red Bull confirmed his departure.

It put an end to what had turned into Schrödinger’s driver decision: Ricciardo was both leaving and yet to leave. Ricciardo’s emotion on Sunday made clear what was going to happen. Yet he’d been robbed of the chance to properly say goodbye to F1. It was all done with an asterisk.

Through his media sessions on Thursday in Singapore, Ricciardo acknowledged the speculation that he could be replaced by Liam Lawson, Red Bull’s reserve driver, as early as the next race. But he seemed more worried about 2025 than the remainder of the season. He didn’t appear to seriously think that it was his last F1 race.

By Saturday, as Ricciardo digested his Q1 exit that left him 16th on the grid, while RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda made it through to Q3, his tone and body language suggested there’d been a shift. What became a possibility had now become assumed as fact.

He made a concerted effort to soak up every single moment of Sunday, knowing this could be the final time he raced in F1. That even extended to taking a little extra time to sit in his car before getting out after the checkered flag. It had been his home for over a decade.

“The cockpit is something that … I got very used to for many years,” Ricciardo said in an emotional interview with F1 TV after the race, fighting back tears. “I just wanted to savor the moment.”

Danny Ric ❤️

An emotional Daniel Ricciardo speaks after the #SingaporeGP pic.twitter.com/53hD09HZ4z

— Formula 1 (@F1) September 22, 2024

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Ricciardo may not be the grand-prix driver he once was at Red Bull. The one who burst onto the scene and immediately put Sebastian Vettel, then the reigning four-time world champion, in the shade in 2014. Or who produced magic around the streets of Monaco in 2018, redemption for his heartbreaking loss two years earlier. Or who put up a genuine challenge to Max Verstappen, now recognized as an F1 great, in their time as teammates.

But he deserved so much better than this protracted, awkward exit that ended up dragging out into a situation where there were zero winners.

Even as Ricciardo spoke like a man who’d raced for the final time in F1 on Sunday, the official line from Red Bull and RB was that no decision had been taken. The only acknowledgement of the potential change in driver lineup came in RB’s post-race press release when, in explaining the decision to pit Ricciardo for the fast lap late on, team principal Laurent Mekies noted it “may have been Daniel’s last race.” Red Bull F1 chief Christian Horner said on Sunday that the break before Austin was a chance to review the driver performances across Red Bull’s two teams, and that Ricciardo was “just one part of the jigsaw.”

The reason that review had to take place now is Lawson, and the need to make a call on his future or risk losing him due to clauses in his contract. If Red Bull had failed to get him on the F1 grid, then he’d be free to leave its driver setup. Given how well he performed during his five-race stint while Ricciardo was out injured last year, Red Bull didn’t want to lose a talent that could play a big part in its F1 future.

But for Ricciardo, the timing meant that, if Red Bull wanted to pull the trigger and make a change with six races left in the season, there was always this risk he’d be robbed of a proper F1 farewell unless a decision were made prior to Singapore.

And of all races to not be at, the United States Grand Prix in Austin, where Ricciardo leans fully into the spirit of the race — he’s sported Texas Longhorns jerseys, cowboy hats, and even entered the paddock on horseback one year — feels like the worst one to make a change before. His commercial appeal, especially in the United States, remains undeniable.

The performance reasons behind the decision are understandable. Ricciardo has only one point in the last seven races, and Lawson showed what he can do during his five-race cameo last year. With Haas closing in on RB in the constructors’ championship standings, sometimes tough calls must be taken for the sake of the wider team.

It’s the waiting that turned this situation into a lose-lose for Red Bull. Had it been announced that Singapore would be Ricciardo’s last race, he’d have received the chance to fully embrace the grand prix weekend and get a proper send-off. There wouldn’t have been the strange uncertainty, the doubt-laden answers. Nothing able to be said with any assurance or confidence.

That all left the F1 community to say a soft goodbye. Social media has been rife with videos of Ricciardo’s emotional chats in Singapore, edits set to “Pink Skies,” his favorite song by Zach Bryan, and clips of his famous “enjoy the butterflies” interview. All of it was on the assumption of a decision that didn’t get confirmed until days later.

No, we’re not losing one of F1’s all-time greats, or even one of the best drivers on the grid right now. It is nevertheless an abrupt, sad farewell to someone who has played a big role in defining F1 through the 2010s and played a significant part in Red Bull’s F1 history.

F1 can be ruthless. That’s no secret. But for someone who has put so much of his heart and personality into being more than just another F1 driver, Ricciardo deserved better.

Daniel Ricciardo celebrates in style after winning the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix, two years after a bad pit stop cost him the victory there. (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)

(Top photo of Daniel Ricciardo after the Singapore Grand Prix: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Joe Wolf, who rose to stardom as a North Carolina basketball captain under legendary coach Dean Smith, died earlier this week. 

The Milwaukee Bucks announced Wolf’s passing.

“Throughout his life, Joe touched many lives and was a highly respected, adored and dedicated coach and player across the NBA,” the Bucks said in a statement on Thursday. Wolf was 59.

After he left North Carolina, Wolf went on to play for several NBA teams over the span of 11 years. He then moved into coaching, working as an assistant for the Bucks’ G League affiliate — the Wisconsin Herd.

“Off the court, Joe was a beloved brother, uncle, friend and community leader,” the statement from the Bucks continued. “We send our deepest condolences to Joe’s family and friends. The Bucks and Herd will always be grateful to Joe for his hard work and commitment to our organization. He will be missed.”

Wolf was a high school All-American in 1983 before joining the Tar Heels to play alongside the likes of Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. Wolf was a co-captain for the Tar Heels as a senior in 1986-87, sharing that role with Kenny Smith.

North Carolina went 115-22 in Wolf’s four seasons, making the Sweet 16 twice and the Elite Eight twice in that span. Wolf credited Smith for instilling important skills in him from the beginning of his college experience.

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“I like to think I started getting trained the minute I stepped on campus,” Wolf told the Greensboro News and Record in 2018. “Coach Smith was all about building the proper habits. That benefits me today.”

North Carolina’s Joe Wolf (24) is stopped by Villanova players Gary McLain (22) and Harold Jensen (32) during early action at NCAA Southeast Regional finals at Birmingham, Ala., March 24, 1985.  (AP Photo/File)

He was an All-ACC pick in 1987 and finished his career at North Carolina with 1,231 points. The Los Angeles Clippers used the No. 13 pick in the 1987 draft on Wolf. He spent three seasons with the organization before joining the Denver Nuggets in 1991, and later playing for five more franchises.

Wolf led Kohler High School to three Wisconsin state championships, and in 2005 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named him the state’s greatest high school basketball player ever, the Bucks said.

He coached at the college level as an assistant at William & Mary and UNC Wilmington, was a head coach in what is now called the G League with Idaho, Colorado and Greensboro, had been an NBA assistant for Milwaukee and Brooklyn and was hired in 2023 as a G League assistant for the Herd.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The California Horse Racing Board met last week in Sacramento to decide the immediate future of horse racing in the northern part of the state. There was tension, confrontation and a sense of desperation from all the proponents in the room looking for a lifeline to run a short three-month meeting in Pleasanton to show that they can do it.

The meeting had everything but power. No, not the kind of power that politicians wield with impunity. Actual honest-to-goodness electrical power, the stuff of Edison and Tesla that drives microphones, lighting and the internet.

It might have been the first time this sort of thing has happened in more than 20 years but the difficulties were emblematic of the current state of California horse racing, a sport that is closer to circling the drain than stopping the bleeding.

So, how does California’s largest race track deal with the current state of the business? Why throw a party, of course.

On Saturday, Santa Anita is hosting the California Crown, a first-year event that is supposed to entice people to experience horse racing by offering healthy sides of musical entertainment, an elevated food experience and the belief the sport can provide more than hoof beats and tote boards.

Some see this as a new version of the apocryphal story of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Others see it as the Stronach Group, owner of Santa Anita, believing so much in the sport that this type of event will energize the populace and bring much-needed new fans to the sport.

“I know they want this to be a day that mirrors the Pegasus at Gulfstream Park in Florida,” said Bill Nader, president and chief executive of the Thoroughbred Owners of California. “So, we’ll see how it goes. It’s a very competitive landscape in Southern California this time of year with USC and UCLA football both being at home, and possibly before sellout crowds. [TSG] is putting its money up and taking its best shot.

“Regardless, if someone says it’s the right use of money, it’s their company, it’s their race track, it’s their call. But we’ll get behind it.”

The day starts at 12:30 p.m. with the first of 10 races. The big races start about 3:30 p.m. with the $750,000 John Henry Turf Championship going 1 ¼ miles, followed by the $750,000 Eddie D Stakes for horses going about 6 ½ furlongs on the downhill turf course.

The big event was supposed to be the $1-million California Crown at 4:30 p.m., with a less than hoped for group of six horses going 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. The race was formerly known as the Awesome Again Stakes, when it paid only $300,000.

The California Crown race is part of a bonus program with a $5-million bonus to any horse that won the Preakness Stakes, California Crown and Pegasus. However, that became meaningless when Preakness winner Seize the Grey elected to skip the California Crown and instead run in the Pennsylvania Derby last week, which he won. There are also bonuses tied to the turf races.

The music will start after the first race is over with Siobhan followed by Amika (1:11 p.m.), the McLarens (1:45 p.m.), Elan Bia (3:42 p.m.), Shaboozey (4:13 p.m.), Zack Bia (5:21 p.m.), Lil Yachty and Zack Bia (5:30 p.m.), Frank Walker (5:51 p.m.) and Gryffin (6:40 p.m.)

Shaboozey is probably the hottest name right now based on a few hits on the country music charts. His set, like most, will last about 20 minutes. The stage is trackside, in the Delila VIP area, just past the finish line. General admission, which was free Friday, is $27.30 on Saturday. General parking is free.

The Delilah trackside box seats, the highest ticket prices, cost $1,372.50 a seat.

“Some concerts work, some concerts don’t work,” said Robert Hartman, who worked in marketing at Santa Anita before becoming general manager at Golden Gate Fields. He is currently the director of the Race Track Industry Program at the University of Arizona.

“We had two types of musical groups,” Hartman said. “One was groups that were just getting started. They were hot but only had maybe one hit. The hope was by the time you booked them they had two, three, four, five hits.

“Or they were the opposite, they had a brand name but their brand has faded. One that comes to mind is Frankie Valli. He had the brand and people still wanted to see him because he was Frankie Valli. The Beach Boys would be another example.”

Hartman remembers when No Doubt, fronted by Gwen Stefani, played at Santa Anita. “We probably had 25,000 to see No Doubt,” Hartman said. “They got more and more popular between the time we booked them and the time they performed. We almost had to shut the admissions gates. And they were relatively inexpensive.”

The real goal of these types of promotions is to collect data about those who are new to racing so they can be the target of direct marketing.

While Hartman believes it’s best to intersperse the music between races, it’s not the only way to do things.

“Del Mar’s now discontinued concerts were apparently very successful, especially their innovation of having the concerts after the races,” said Alan Balch a longtime Santa Anita marketing and public relations executive who is the executive director of the California Thoroughbred Trainers.

“It enabled concertgoers to come to the races earlier, at the regular low track admission price, but then have to pay a much higher admission to come to the concert alone. To any regular racing fan attending those days, it was a win-win — large numbers of new fans being introduced to the races, with the attendant buzz in the crowd. The after-race concerts did not disturb any racing activities. This is the very definition of successful market development, provided the concert cost-benefit analysis indicated break-even or better.”

Aidan Butler is the chief executive over TSG’s ever-shrinking racing empire. The company closed Golden Gate Fields this year and gave Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to the state so it didn’t have to pay for a massive rebuild of the ancient facility.

“The criticism of California is that no one markets anymore and we take that as a fair criticism,” Butler said. “How do you get visibility for a racetrack that is in a very highly populated area that is Hollywood? I’m just trying to get visibility to a newer audience. And you can’t do that with just horse racing.”

California racing has been in decline for several years. The state has some of the lowest purses compared with the racing circuits in Kentucky and New York. The difference is those states get supplemental income from casino gambling, something California does not. Kentucky purses have reached ridiculously high levels since the introduction of Historical Horse Racing, marketed as a game of skill using old horse races as content but is really little more than a slot machine.

Purses are paid through a percentage of money bet on the races and managed by the TOC. If there is not enough revenue by virtue of reduced mutuel handle, the TOC enters what’s counterintuitively known as an overpayment. The shortfall is paid by the track with the fantastical notion that it will one day be paid back.

During the six-month winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita, there was a shortfall of $5 million, which Santa Anita is carrying. At Del Mar, the track picked up $1 million in purses.

TSG is picking up the tab for Saturday’s racing, which amounts to about $3.1 million.

“Some ask why don’t they take that money and put it into overnight [daily] purses or to pay down the overpayment, but in the end, it’s their money, their race track and if they elect to go for the big bang marketing effort then who are we to object,” Nader said.

“We have to respect their strategic investment if they believe that this is a better approach and it’s going to help. Either effort would benefit horse owners but … we have to respect their position. I could make an argument for either side. If they were to come and offer that money for overnights, I’d be in favor of that too.”

Hartman points out that even if Saturday is a huge success, you need a strategy beyond that one day.

“On the negative side, we would get people on a big day like that and they had a good time and they come back on a Thursday and the experience wasn’t quite as energetic,” Hartman said. “It was always my concern when their second visit didn’t live up to the excitement of the first visit with live music. Would that then turn them off?”

Balch says all tracks need to look beyond the next big weekend.

“Any marketing, advertising, sales promotion efforts must be part of a plan which enables measuring effectiveness,” Balch said. “All ‘proper’ marketing is for profit, either short or long-term, and must be subject to analysis of cost vs. benefit.”

If Saturday’s card is a success as an experience — it’s highly unlikely it will be a financial success — Butler understands the tightrope that must be walked between regular and new race-goers.

“We really do give a lot of thought into customers that are here day in and day out,” Butler said. “The elevation of the experience is to attract new customers. But we still want to show the love to customers who come day in and day out. And you’ve got the ADW [advance deposit wagering] crowd and the people who bet from home. I’m hoping from a betting standpoint there will be a great card to wager on.”

It will take time to assess if this grand experiment will make a difference or if one day Shaboozey will be the answer to a trivia question as to who played a significant role in saving California racing.