“Funny thing… you deserve this.” Daniel Ricciardo had thoughts on his collision with Max Verstappen during the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix when he retired from Red Bull.
The Australian admits that the team’s handling made him decide to leave. Before the pair collided for the third time on lap 40, Verstappen swept both drivers as he tried to pass his team-mate and spun twice in the race. The team reprimanded both drivers, but Ricciardo left a bitter taste in his mouth that no amount of energy drink could seem to wash away.
Ricciardo led his new team-mate in their first season together at Red Bull in 2016, but it was no secret that Verstappen was trending upwards. In the year In 2017, the gap narrowed. In 2018, Verstappen appears to be making the team his own as he pursues his dream of becoming world champion.
However, Ricciardo ended his three-year stint with Verstappen on 457 points to his team-mate’s 377 points. But from Verstappen’s history-making career to his Red Bull career as the youngest driver to win, he initially felt that he, not Ricciardo, represented the team’s future.
Shortly after the Baku clash, Ricardo made a major decision in his life. He took a big gamble by signing for Renault and left Red Bull. He is returning to them after four years. Gambling seems unsuccessful, but why?
After struggling with Renault in 2019, Ricciardo sits ninth on 54 points. More hope came in 2020 when Ricciardo finished fifth with 119 points. But before that second season had even begun, Ricciardo had already cast his lot with another team.
In the year In 2019, McLaren made great strides under new management. When Carlos Sainz Jr moved to Ferrari for 2021, a vacancy opened up which Ricciardo won, much to the chagrin of Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul.
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McLaren arrive on the back of a strong 2020 campaign. But it just didn’t click with their car from the start. He finished one-two for the team at Monza, but was led home by teammate Lando Norris.
On that exciting day, Ricciardo’s stats from his letter at McLaren were grim reading. Last season, in 22 Grands Prix, he was eliminated by his team-mate 20 times. Norris scored 85 points.
Ricciardo’s intended three-year contract was cut in two, leaving him without a driver for the 2023 F1 season. And so, in circumstances unthinkable four years ago, Ricciardo is returning to Red Bull as the ‘third driver’.
Unsurprisingly, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes Ricciardo made the wrong decision to leave the team he invested in as a youngster and brought him to F1 11 years ago.
“Daniel joined us as a teenager and grew up here with the team,” Horner said after Ricciardo’s return to Red Bull was announced. “He had good success here with us and then he went and did something stupid and drove for two other teams and it didn’t work out.”
However, despite returning to Red Bull, Ricciardo does not feel his decision to leave was a mistake in the first place. “I have no regrets,” he said in Brazil.
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“People say, ‘It didn’t work out after Red Bull, he went to Renault, he stayed there for two years, he went to McLaren, he stayed there for two years. That’s how I got it: if you like, he seems to have failed.
But I know the feeling of having to try and move on. Obviously, I won’t win world championships after I leave Red Bull. But I feel for myself and what I’ve learned and gone through, I still feel better.”
If there is a place for him on the grid for the 2024 F1 season, he remains confident he will be back in good form.
“There are no guarantees, but I feel that it would be much better if I fell on the top bench. I think that I will grow in this position.
“I probably go a little bit deeper in terms of ‘everything happens for a reason’ and even if the results aren’t what they were on paper, I feel like I have to break out of my shell at the time. I stayed.”
Ricciardo, although the 2018 season started well for him, soon indicated that he found himself in a downward spiral, which prompted his decision to retire.
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“I was watching some season highlights, I had eight or nine DNFs. [did not finish]It was a brutal season. Especially the way it started: two wins in the first six races and it was a terrible season.
“Even though I was with a great team at the time, the energy inside me, I was very low. Even though on paper you could say, ‘Oh, you never should have gone,’ I felt the need to go back to that moment and feel what I should have done.
No matter how tough the 2022 campaign is, many will be disappointed to see a driver with such obvious talent. “I think he should compete privately,” Lewis Hamilton said. “I think he is very talented [be a reserve driver]And he’s earned the right to be a racer from all of us.
But for now, Ricciardo’s F1 moves will remain confined to the simulator. Is this the beginning of the end for him as a Grand Prix driver? There is no guarantee he will start another F1 race and he has taken on a role usually reserved for aspiring young drivers.
Had he pursued one of the open positions at Haas or Williams, he may have had a chance to stay on the grid. In the year He has taken the risky approach of going off the grid in 2024 in order to return with a rival team. But there is a chance that the release will be permanent. Despite his outward satisfaction with the decisions he’s made, he might wonder what the 2022 Daniel Ricciardo would say to the 2018 Daniel Ricciardo if he could.
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