When Loyalty Becomes a Burden: What Formula 1 Can Teach Us About Accountability and Resilience

As someone who has spent more than three decades working in emergency management, crisis leadership, and organisational resilience, I have learned that one of the greatest tests of leadership is how organisations deal with failure.

Who gets the blame?

Who takes responsibility?

And perhaps most importantly, who carries burdens that do not belong to them?

It is one of the reasons why I have found myself reflecting on the careers of Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc. Both are exceptionally talented Formula 1 drivers. Both are deeply self-critical. Both have experienced periods of intense pressure and scrutiny. Yet, in my view, there is an important difference between the two.

I believe Daniel Ricciardo carried the weight of his teams' failures more often than Charles Leclerc. This is not a criticism of Leclerc. Nor is it an attempt to diminish Ricciardo's own mistakes. Drivers make mistakes. Teams make mistakes. That is the nature of elite sport. But Formula 1 is, above all else, a team sport. Drivers may be the public face of success and failure, but behind every car stand hundreds of engineers, strategists, mechanics, and leaders whose decisions directly influence performance.

Throughout his career, Ricciardo developed a reputation for protecting those around him. Whether at Red Bull, Renault, McLaren, or VCARB, he often chose diplomacy over criticism. Even when circumstances appeared to be outside his control, he frequently redirected attention towards himself or used collective language such as "we need to improve."

Following the end of Ricciardo's 2024 stint with VCARB, Team Principal Laurent Mekies publicly acknowledged that the team had collectively failed to provide Ricciardo with a car in which he could consistently perform (Motorsport.com, 2024; F1i.com, 2024). To me, this was a significant admission. It suggested that significant amount of the criticism directed towards Ricciardo may not have reflected the full picture.

In my opinion, what followed only reinforced that view. Ricciardo's departure from Formula 1 was handled in a manner that many fans perceived as lacking compassion and respect for a driver who had given more than a decade of service to the sport. Even today, there remains debate over precisely when the decision regarding his future was made and when Ricciardo himself became aware of it. While some reports later suggested that he had known before the Singapore Grand Prix that his Formula 1 career with VCARB was coming to an end (Reuters, 2024), Ricciardo's own comments and demeanour during the race weekend appeared to indicate a degree of uncertainty. The emotional scenes in Singapore, combined with the absence of a formal farewell race and later acknowledgements from team management that aspects of the process could have been handled better, left many observers questioning whether Red Bull and VCARB had afforded one of the sport's most popular drivers the exit his career deserved (Formula1.com, 2024).

Organisations cannot always avoid difficult decisions, but they can choose how transparently and compassionately those decisions are communicated. In crisis leadership, uncertainty is sometimes unavoidable. Poor communication, however, is a choice.

As someone who studies resilience and leadership, I believe how organisations treat people at the end of their service reveals as much about their culture as how they celebrate success. Leadership is tested not only in moments of victory but also in moments of transition, uncertainty, and goodbye.

However, what interests me most is not simply how Ricciardo left Formula 1, but what his experience may reveal about organisations more broadly.

In many teams, whether in sport, business, emergency management, or public service, there are individuals who quietly become the emotional and professional shock absorbers of the system. They protect colleagues, they preserve morale, they shield leaders from criticism and when things go wrong, they carry burdens that were never theirs to carry alone.

In my experience, these individuals are often among an organisation's most loyal and highest-performing members. Their willingness to take responsibility is frequently admired. Yet over time, this can become unhealthy for both the individual and the organisation.

When teams repeatedly allow one person to absorb the consequences of collective failures, several things happen.

First - the organisation fails to learn.

Second - accountability becomes distorted.

Third - the individual may suffer damage to their confidence, wellbeing, and reputation.

Most importantly, the underlying systemic problems remain unresolved. From a resilience perspective, this is dangerous as resilient organisations do not rely upon heroes. They build systems in which responsibility is shared, communication is open, and failures are examined honestly and collectively.

Formula 1 may be an extreme environment, but the lessons apply everywhere from emergency services to boardrooms, universities, and government organisations.

Perhaps the real question is not whether Daniel Ricciardo carried too much of the burden. Perhaps the question is:

Why do organisations so often allow their most loyal people to carry burdens that belong to everyone?

By contrast, Charles Leclerc strikes me as a different type of self-critical driver. Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has described Leclerc's tendency towards self-criticism as both a strength and a weakness (Formula1.com, 2025). Throughout his Formula 1 career, Leclerc has repeatedly accepted responsibility for mistakes, often in strikingly honest and emotional terms. Following his qualifying crash in Barcelona in 2026, he publicly stated that he felt "ashamed" and accepted responsibility for the incident (Reuters, 2026). This willingness to own mistakes is, in many ways, admirable and reflects a driver who sets exceptionally high standards for himself.

Yet Leclerc's career also illustrates another side of resilience: the burden of expectation. As Ferrari's long-term hope for a championship, Leclerc has carried not only the weight of his own ambitions but also those of one of the most famous teams in world sport. The arrival of seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari in 2025 only intensified scrutiny and expectation.

Unlike Ricciardo, Leclerc has at times appeared more willing to publicly question team decisions, particularly around strategy and car performance. Ferrari's operational mistakes have occasionally been acknowledged openly by the team itself, reinforcing the idea that Formula 1 success and failure are rarely the responsibility of one individual alone.

Indeed, the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix provided a notable example. Following the double disqualification of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari publicly accepted responsibility for operational errors rather than placing blame on the drivers (The Guardian, 2025). Such moments demonstrate the importance of organisational accountability and illustrate that even the world's most famous racing team is not immune from systemic mistakes.

Yet despite this, Leclerc still appears to carry an enormous emotional burden. His public self-criticism, visible frustration, and repeated expressions of disappointment suggest a driver who often places extraordinary pressure upon himself. Like many high achievers, he appears driven by an intense desire for perfection in a sport where perfection is impossible.

Perhaps this is where the comparison between Ricciardo and Leclerc becomes most interesting. Ricciardo often seemed willing to carry the burdens of the team. Leclerc often appears willing to carry the burden of his own expectations. Both approaches have costs. One risks unfairly protecting the system. The other risks becoming trapped by self-imposed pressure.

From a resilience perspective, neither extreme is entirely healthy. Resilient individuals recognise what belongs to them and what does not.

Perhaps the lesson from both Ricciardo and Leclerc is this:

No matter how talented an individual may be, resilience is strongest when responsibility is shared, communication is open, and trust exists long before adversity arrives. Because ultimately, whether in Formula 1 or any organisation, resilience is not built by asking extraordinary individuals to carry extraordinary burdens alone. It is built when teams share responsibility, communicate openly, and treat people with fairness and respect, both during their journey and when that journey comes to an end.

References

F1i.com (2024) Mekies: Entire RB team responsible for Ricciardo's failure. Available at: https://f1i.com/news/528510-mekies-entire-rb-team-responsible-for-ricciardos-failure.html (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

Formula1.com (2024) 'We are not happy with how we handled it' – Mekies admits RB made mistakes with Ricciardo exit. Available at: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/we-are-not-happy-with-how-we-handled-it-mekies-admits-rb-made-mistakes-with-ricciardo-exit.1813285451245389607 (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

Formula1.com (2025) Vasseur explains why Leclerc's self-criticism is both a quality and a fault. Available at: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/vasseur-explains-why-leclercs-self-criticism-is-both-a-quality-and-a-fault.1biWCT76GPcxN5dMHfVm2i (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

Motorsport.com (2024) RB: Whole team at fault over failing to get Ricciardo to click. Available at: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rb-we-all-admit-fault-over-failing-to-get-ricciardo-to-click/10684449/ (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

Reuters (2024) Ricciardo knew he was out before Singapore, says RB boss. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/sports/formula1/ricciardo-knew-he-was-out-before-singapore-says-rb-boss-2024-10-19/ (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

Reuters (2026) Leclerc 'ashamed' after crashing again. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/sports/formula1/leclerc-ashamed-after-crashing-again-2026-06-13/ (Accessed: 13 June 2026).

The Guardian (2025) Ferrari admit 'genuine error' after Hamilton and Leclerc disqualified. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/mar/23/ferrari-error-lewis-hamilton-charles-leclerc-disqualified-chinese-gp-f1 (Accessed: 13 June 2026).