Christian Horner has recently revealed a usual regret about Daniel Ricciardo. As Ricciardo, the eight-time Grand Prix winner, has returned to his former team, the Red Bull boss shared that the team didn’t want him to leave before anything else.
Horner said about this on Red Bull’s YouTube channel, “We didn’t want him [Daniel Ricciardo] to go in the first place.” He then went on to talk about the adventures the Honey Badger had in other teams.
The Australian left the Milton-Keynes-based team in 2018. The move had arrived after a heated season alongside Max Verstappen. But Ricciardo has moved back to Red Bull, the team he calls home at the beginning of the 2023 F1 season.
This homecoming came after four bitter-sweet years away from the Austrian team, notably in Renault and McLaren, where instead of going up, they took him down in the trajectory. And now, in the Austrian team, he has joined as the third driver behind Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
Christian Horner hasn’t seen the real Daniel Ricciardo since his Red Bull departure
Talking about the honey badger, the Red Bull team principal stated that he hadn’t seen the dangerous Daniel Ricciardo after he parted ways with the team. He was not the same driver that he was with the defending champions.
“he was right up there with the very best,” Horner emphasized the “legendary” and breathtaking braking moves and the overtakes Ricciardo pulled off with the Bulls.
Looking forward to returning home 😊 https://t.co/cT3yFUXBhz
— Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) November 23, 2022
Admittedly, Daniel Ricciardo has only managed a win and two podiums in the four years when he was away from the Milton-Keynes-based team. While he picked up two podiums with Renault, the only win arrived with McLaren in 2021 when Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton took each other out in Imola.
Red Bull provided Ricciardo with a lifeline
After McLaren decided to part ways with Ricciardo, the Australian found it impossible to find a seat that suited him. With all the top and mid-table teams having their drivers under contract for the next season, the 33-year-old’s exit from the sport was inevitable.
Additionally, the former McLaren star wasn’t interested in having a seat at Haas or Williams, the backmarkers currently. Furthermore, demoting to AlphaTauri wasn’t an option for him either. Hence, going out of F1 was the only option left.
Until Red Bull has come up with an opportunity or a “lifeline,” according to Christian Horner, the boss, he said he didn’t want to see the wide smiled man leave the sport so soon.
