Many believe that the downfall of Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career started with his decision to leave Red Bull. However, F1 pundit Edd Straw believes that even if he had stayed with the Milton Keynes squad, his career wouldn’t have turned out dramatically different from where it eventually ended.
Ricciardo announced mid-season in 2018 that he would be leaving Red Bull to join forces with Renault starting in 2019. His motivation to leave the Austrian team came from his belief that Red Bull had gradually started to favor Max Verstappen more and more and that they had decided if anyone was going to become a champion at Red Bull, it was the Dutchman.
In a recent episode of the ‘The Race’ podcast, Edd Straw answered questions from the fans regarding the Honey Badger’s career had he stayed at Red Bull. “Well, there’s kind of some short-term detail changes had he not left Red Bull… There would have been some more wins certainly more wins than he’s got.”, Straw said.
“But I don’t think he’d have been a world champion suddenly, although he could have been quite a valuable ally in the 2021 championship fight.”, he wondered.
There have been several speculations around the notion that Ricciardo should’ve stayed at Red Bull in 2018. But as Straw suggested, it seems difficult that the Aussie would’ve made peace with the issues he felt at Milton Keynes around Verstappen being the team’s favorite.
While it was a full-circle moment for him to want to return to the same Red Bull team, Ricciardo could not fulfill that fairytale ending he wished for.
In any case, Ricciardo still deserved to at least finish his last season in F1 and many fans believe that he has been mistreated by Red Bull. And he could have finished the season if it was not for one man.
Helmut Marko wanted to get rid of Ricciardo even sooner
Christian Horner recently commented that he had been holding back Marko from dropping Daniel Ricciardo even earlier in the season. One fan asked the panel if that was the right call to drop him mid-season.
Scott Mitchell-Malm explained that this has always been a problem with the Red Bull management that they haven’t always been very clear about which drivers to back (except for Verstappen maybe). However, he also pointed out that perhaps Marko had never been able to get over the fact that Ricciardo walked from Red Bull of his own accord.
Christian Horner reveals that Marko wanted to sack Daniel Ricciardo as early as the Spanish GP
“Even around Barcelona, Helmut wanted him out the car”
[F1 Nation Podcast] pic.twitter.com/RIaE4WwKHL
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) September 30, 2024
“It kind of shows very clearly what we’ve known all along and been saying all along. Ricciardo was Horner’s man Marko not so much a fan. I don’t think Marko ever really let go of Ricciardo walking away from Red Bull in the manner that he did a few years back,” Mitchell-Malm said.
He also said that he got to know from one of the Aussie’s confidantes that they knew since April that he would be sacked and wouldn’t have stayed till Singapore if not for Horner.
