Daniel Ricciardo became a huge star in F1 during his time at Red Bull, winning seven races during his time there. However, in 2019, he decided to leave them for Renault to seek a new challenge. The Enstone-based outfit provided him with a car that couldn’t fight at the front and after two seasons, he shifted to McLaren in a move that was seen as hugely promising on paper.
Unfortunately for Ricciardo, his McLaren stint turned out to be a nightmare. Other than his solitary win in Monza last year, the Aussie has massively struggled to match his teammate Lando Norris’ pace. The latter has outperformed him in all aspects, and the Woking squad felt that Ricciardo had to leave at the end of 2022. The 33-year-old driver was left without an F1 seat for 2023 and won’t be driving next season.
For Ricciardo and his fans, it’s a huge loss. However, the honey badger insisted that he does want to stay in touch with the sport. This is why he was open to taking up a reserve role and ended up returning to Milton-Keynes for his second stint with Red Bull.
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Daniel Ricciardo felt happy about Red Bull wanting him back
After losing his seat, some rumors initially linked him to Williams and Haas. The Perth-born driver, however, insisted that he did not want to remain in the sport for the sake of it and drive at the back of the grid. Instead, he was happy that big teams like Mercedes and Red Bull were interested in having him as a reserve driver.
“It was nice to still be valued by some top teams,” the 33-year-old said in the In the Fast Lane podcast. “Especially after the couple of years, I’ve just had.”
Ricciardo went on to reveal the reason why he didn’t consider joining Mercedes. He became a star with Red Bull and knew a lot of faces on the team including Christian Horner and Max Verstappen. After two quick and unsuccessful stints with Renault and McLaren, Ricciardo admitted that returning to Red Bull made the most sense.
“When the Red Bull thing became more serious,” he continued. “It made more and more sense. I also thought, I’ve obviously jumped around quite a bit in the last few years. And maybe a bit of familiarity would be good for me.”
In his final season for McLaren, Ricciardo finished 11th in the standings with 37 points to his name.
Also read: 8-GP winner Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull didn’t ‘owe him anything’ after 2018 exit
