Did Renault Fool Ricciardo Into Leaving Red Bull?

Daniel Ricciardo has actually finished in only 1 race out of 4 held thus far. Perhaps it would be a bit of an understatement to say that he’s not exactly having a ball in F1 this season. Or is he?

After race-retiring from the season-opener at Melbourne, his home Grand Prix, Ricciardo went on to struggle at Bahrain and the only scoring opportunity he finally found came not before the third Grand Prix of the season, held at China. A strong P7 at the 1000th F1 race wasn’t too bad at the end of the day. It was a performance that was much better vis-a-vis Nico’s, who had been beating Ricciardo up until then.

But then, when he should’ve continued, going from strength to strength, it didn’t help his cause when the next race arrived.

To that end, it didn’t help his cause one bit that he retired from the recently concluded Azerbaijan Grand Prix?

The fourth race of the season found Ricciardo desperately making a move or two in an attempt to gather what he could’ve at a track where both racing and overtaking aren’t always easy.

This, it must be remembered, may not have been that easy a mental battle given the fact that as of last year, in 2018, Daniel Ricciardo failed to score any points here again. Toward the closing stages of the contest, then at Red Bull, the Australian came to blows with Max Verstappen, not an easy guy to pass.

But amid these difficulties, it appears that Ricciardo’s switch to Renault, from Red Bull, wasn’t really that uncomplicated a move and that his current team may have ‘fooled’ the “honey badger” into driving for the Cyril Abiteboul-led team.

But then, wait a sec! Is this Ricciardo’s own version of things? Actually, it turns out that Helmut Marko, among the most important figures at Red Bull is of the view that Renault have fooled the Australian driver to race for them.

He shared his views with leading motor-sport journals and shared the following:

Marko believes that Renault are “very good” at showing data to support their aims, but that Ricciardo fell for false promises.

“Renault is good at that,” Marko told Motorsport-Total.

“They showed us charts over and over again, showing the engine will be massive next year. He will have just believed it.”