It has now been three years since Daniel Ricciardo left Renault for McLaren. While a lot has changed in the landscape of F1 since then, Ricciardo’s former team boss Cyril Abiteboul is still in no mood to forgive the Australian driver for his ‘selfish’ nature.
Speaking on the Dans La Boîte À Gants podcast, Abiteboul said, “I think it’s a very early move, a bit selfish, because in the end, it will have given the team just one season’s chance, and so it’s true that it’s a decision that I’m taking badly.”
Here, Abiteboul was was referring to Ricciardo’s decision of leaving the team at the end of 2020 after having spent just one year with them.
For Abiteboul, the pain of this decision remains as the Frenchman took the entire matter rather personally.
“Of course, because I can see that it’s a personal rejection. I take it completely personally. I accept it. And I can see what the consequences are going to be, too,” he said.
What is difficult for Ricciardo’s former team boss to understand is the fact that the Australian driver seemed to have moved away from Red Bull since he was being overshadowed by Max Verstappen there.
However, it didn’t seem like he was up for the fight in a role where he would be leading his new team. Rather, he seemed more comfortable moving to McLaren where Lando Norris already enjoyed support from the team.
How Ricciardo surprised Abiteboul
Abiteboul confessed that Ricciardo’s performances in 2020 did take him by surprise, given the team’s struggled in 2019.
The Honey Badger was able to claim two podiums (Eifel GP and Emilia Romagna GP), which came as a pleasant surprise to Renault.
“I don’t see it happening either that we [would] have such a good year in 2020, all the same, with podiums and a car that once again, by making a few fewer mistakes, could [have finished] third in the standings,” Abiteboul said.
With Ricciardo choosing to feature for McLaren starting from 2021, Abiteboul knows why the move didn’t work out quite the way 34-year-old may have envisaged.
“Ricciardo always has a timing problem: he left us too early, and he left McLaren too early,” Abiteboul said.
Another former boss of Ricciardo, Christian Horner also spoke about how he had noticed the timing of the Australian’s moves and subsequent failure at new teams leaving an impact on the man.
In an interview with Speedcafe.com, Horner said, “I think he picked up a lot of bad habits”. Soon afterwards, he was reunited with the Red Bull family as a driver for AlphaTauri following a successful drive during tyre testing at Silverstone.
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