Former Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo has openly admitted that he wishes he had never left Red Bull Racing at the end of the 2018 season to join Renault for the following year.
The Australian driver secured seven Grand Prix victories during his tenure with the Milton Keynes-based outfit. However, his shock departure paved the way for Max Verstappen to establish himself as the team's undisputed leader on his way to claiming four consecutive world championship titles starting from 2021.
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, he confirmed that the team genuinely wanted him to stay and reflected that, with the benefit of hindsight, he would have approached his career path differently.
"If I’m to answer it shortly, yes. I guess I wish I would have stayed, right? I say I guess, that doesn’t sound convincing. I wish I would have stayed but, I don’t know, also at the time I left because I felt I was getting a bit comfortable, a bit complacent. I think there was a desire to try something else. So I don’t know, it’s not that black and white," he stated.
The veteran driver acknowledged that the move cost him what was undoubtedly his finest opportunity to fight for a world championship crown. Although he later secured a memorable victory with McLaren at Monza in 2021, his stint in the sport ultimately concluded following a turbulent period that ended after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.
"If I could have been a world champion, yes, was that my best opportunity? Yeah, absolutely. So from that point of view, I’m like, 'Yeah, I would have loved to have known another reality of if I stayed.' I don’t want to say it haunts me, but it’s the one unknown that I’m like, I’m so interested how that would have panned out," he added.
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