Ricciardo’s midseason Formula 1 comeback was halted by a broken metacarpal in his left hand after crash♑ing his AꦛlphaTauri at Zandvoort.

His journey to recovery included Dr. Xavier Mir, the Barcelona doct꧑ꦿor who is well-respected in MotoGP for fixing these types of injuries.

Mir has operated on Marc Marquez after his nওotable 2020 injury, and also on Lance Stroll’s wrist injury earlier this year.

“From the medical centre, we went to th🌟e hospital there in Amsterdam, got scans, and they're like, ‘yeah, it's broken’,” Ricciardo told the podcast.

“By this point, it looks like an elephant stepped on my haꩵnd. The doctor there said, ‘look, I would recommend surgery. You can have it here, but you probably want to wait a few days for the swelling to go down, speak to whoever you need to speak to, and obviously you can🔥 have your surgery wherever you want.’

“We reached out to Lance. We reached out to Jose, a friend of ours who works with Alpine st𒉰ars, so he knows all the MotoGP guys, and he's Spanish as well. 

“He put us in to🥀uch with Xavier Mir. Lance was like, ‘go to him as well.’ 🦹;

“It was a blessing and a curse because he d🐽oes a lot of MotoGP guys, who are not human. They are not. It’s fact. 

“I think there's an expectation of me going in there. He's like, ‘oh, F1, MotoGP, they’r♓e the same - not human, don't feel pain.’ 

“No doctor, ༒I feel pain. I'm going to cry for thꦿe next 48 hours in this hospital! It was just funny!

“I think all the doctors and nurses who were helping me were great, but they would laugh a 🅘lot because I would wince and pull away and ask questions about every needle that went into my arm. 

“I think they just th🦩ought I would be tough like a MotoGP rider. But I’m not. 

“The break itself was quite s🦹ignificant and it was a shatter. It was in eight pieces. 

“For a bone that can be quite a simple one, it wasn't too pretꩲty. It's like the ou♊tside of the hand. The bone I broke was in between the wrist and the pinky, like that knuckle.

“Even just rubbing my f🥂inger over the top of my hand hurt like crazy🐼. Maybe I just feel pain more than others. I don't know. 

“There wa🌳s also the reality where, yes, I𝔉 would moan and complain because I don't like the pain, but it was a broken hand. 

“There was also part of me which was ꦏlike, 'yes, you're in pain a🉐nd it's going to be a bit of a process, but people have worse injuries. People have bigger accidents’. 

“Don't get me wrong, I also tried to reဣality check myself through it all. I think that's what made mꦉe remain quite positive.”

Ricciardo missed five rounds, d🥃uring which his replacement Liam Lawson impressed hugely.

“I was doing physio every d❀ay and I was doing what I could to come back as soon as possible,” Ricciardo said. 

“But Red Bull and AlphaTauri were really good wi♚th this, as I wasn't fighting for a world championship. 

“It's not like you༒ need to just drive through immense pain and just get a point, beca🧜use your title is on the line. 

“It was, ‘let's make sure you heal properly and get the right treatment, because also you've got hopefull🌸y a second part of your career, which is going to be long and glorious. Don't compromise anything that you then have a bung hand for the next two years of your career, three years, whateve🍌r.’”

Ricc🦩iardo returned in Austin but said: “Qatar was ta🧜lked about. I went on the sim the week of Qatar on the Monday, but I couldn't yet drive with the full force of the steering. 

“I just couldn't grip it and d⛦o more than two laps at full strength. It was very clear that Qatar was out of the question, and also for me to come back and not drive at my best, no one benefits. At that point, we were just like, ‘let’s go all in for Austin and make sure I’m good for that.’”

'Sometimes you just don't have the luxury of time'

The injury occurred during Free Practice 2 at the Dutch Grand Prix, which was only Ricciardo’s third round since returning to 🅠the grid.

He explained the accident: “You come through Turn 2 and i🔯t's over a crest. 

“You stay quite tight because the line for 3, you ri🐲de the top of t♋he banking, so you're not taking a conventional racing line. 

“You're not looking at the apex, you're😼 looking at the top of the corner. As a driver, we're always looking ahead and normally aꦦt the apex. 

“But the way you exit 2, you then look straight ahead and pick your braking point. At that point I'd e🌜xited 2, I hadn't seen any yellows, nothing like that.

“By the time I've looked ahead and braked, I've then looked where ༒I need to turn and I see Oscar. This all happened so quickly. The line we take is high, and by this point I'd braked, so I'd already committed. I knew the speed I was going. 

“My only choice was to take the high line, but I could see his car was at the top of the track, so there wasn't e🀅nough room for me to pass through the high line. 

“I'm going too fast to 🦄take a low line, so it was either probably look like a real idiot and crash into him, or just try to slow the car as much as I can and likely jusꦅt crash into the barriers, which is what happened.

“B🀅y the time I'd committed to just going straight, I hadn’t realised, ‘take your hands off the wheel.’ 

“A lot of us still don'𓂃t do it because crashing is not natural, and it happens so quickly because you don't plan to crash. You don't have the time to be like, ‘okay, I'm crashing. What do I need to do? Brace myself. Okay, take ♛my hands off the wheel.’ 

“Sometimes you just don't have the luxury of time. 🐲That was it. I hit the wall.

“Basically, when I've gone in, I'm pr💎e📖tty sure the right front would have grabbed the Tecpro first and that’s pulled it in. It’s like I’ve turned a really hard right, the way it's grabbed the wheel. 

“Becaus♍e the wheels then turn so quickly, I've basically lost grip. It's spun out of my hands and the bottom of the wheel, which is pure hard carbon, has then come up and basically karate chopped my hand. 

“Then you've got the shock of a crash and adrenaline. I could feel my hand.🔜 The pain ramped up and really quickly I feared something was bad.

“As I'm pulling my glove off, I remember thinking, ‘if there's a bone throuౠgh the skin, I'm going to pass out. Please, please don't let me see anything gruesome.’ I’m not good with this stuff, I’m sweating telling it. I pulled my glove off and I could see it was already quite swollen, but no bone through the skin. 

“Then the pain just got so bad. As soon as I jumped into the medical car, I was mak𒀰ing a lot of 🐈noises because I was in a lot of discomfort.

“I knew that it was not good. I knew immediately I wasn't going to race on the weekend. I didn't need a doctor to tell me. I feared it was a broken bone. I think the first thing that really made me sad was that I’d just had a ve♊ꦗry, very productive summer break. 

“I felt really, really good physically, and I was just ready to go. This just felt like an unfortunate setback. I was more worried about surgery and all that because I'm a bit o🌄f a wuss.”