Daniel Ricciardo was ready for the inquisition. The soon-to-be ex-Red Bull F1 driver knew he was going to face the brunt of the questioning in the officials drivers’ press conference at the Belgian Grand Prix. He even cheekily pumped his fist every time a journalist piped up with a query that wasn’t directed at him. To be fair, it’s not every day a driver drops a bombshell on said journalists in the middle of a four-week period when they’re totally unable. In all, he pumped his fist six times as questions were asked of Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly — the rest of the time it was Ricciardo in the spotlight as the press finally got its chance to grill him over his shock move to Renault.
Was it really Max Verstappen’s rising strength that drove him out of the team? Was he scared off by Honda? Had Renault offered him a shed load of dollars? A candid Ricciardo revealed a much simpler reason. It really was just time for a change. “It was a long, long thought process, for sure,” he said. “I just felt I got to a point where I felt I was ready for a change. That was the long and short of it. I’m ready for a new challenge. And for me personally, just some fresh motivation. “That sounds easy saying it like that — it wasn’t. It wasn’t easy. A few sleepless nights trying to come up with the best conclusion for myself.
“But once I made that decision and pulled the trigger, I felt comfortable with it. It feels right moving forward for next year.” Although he said Honda, Red Bull’s new engine partner for 2019, still had to prove itself as a frontrunner, it wasn’t a major factor in his decision. Nor was his young Dutch teammate, Ricciardo categorically denying he felt Red Bull were showing Verstappen any favouritism. “No, I guess is the short answer,” he affirmed. “I think externally that might be seen as the case, but honestly internally … I mean, yeah, in Baku we had an incident and a couple of on-track things. “But as far as equality went within the team, probably from the outside sometimes people probably thought that, but hand on heart, there was never any concern with that or any sign of that.”
The last five years have been a blur for Ricciardo. Vaulted from Toro Rosso to world title-winning Red Bull just as the squad hit a rough patch, the 29-year-old has emerged as a contender for world titles. Red Bull raised him into the sport and ushered his way into the top of Formula 1, taking him to seven Grand Prix wins and a brace of pole positions. Despite his impressive start to the season with victories in China and at Monaco, Ricciardo was already questioning whether he wanted to continue to stay with the organisation that has shaped the last decade of his life. “It was an amazing start to the year for me with so many positives,” he said. “But there were times I was feeling, for whatever reason, I felt personally a little bit frustrated — within myself, not with necessarily things that were happening within the team. And I was just trying to understand why. “We don’t have a 9-to-5 job and we’re not going to the same office every day, but (there’s) many years of going to the same factory, that kind of routine. “I felt like, at times, my enjoyment for the sport was becoming a little bit dulled down or numb at times, and I felt partly the routine was causing that. “I’m discovering myself and life and it’s changing pretty rapidly.
