‘Stop f***ing about’: Red Bull thought Ricciardo was ‘taking the p*ss’ with shock exit

Red Bull’s boss has revealed stunning new details of Daniel Ricciardo’s shock exit and the team’s desperate efforts to keep him.

Matthew Sullivan

4 min read

November 9, 2023 - 11:54AM

Christian Horner was blindsided by Daniel Ricciardo’s decision to leave Red Bull. (Photo by ANDREJ ISAKOVIC / AFP)

Red Bull boss Christian Horner thought Daniel Ricciardo was “taking the p*ss” when he left for Renault in 2018, revealing the team was willing to empty its pockets to keep the Australian.

Ricciardo famously departed Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season after several on-track skirmishes with Max Verstappen and getting the impression the team was backing the Dutch golden boy as the No. 1 driver.

In one of F1’s great sliding doors moments, Ricciardo joined Renault for two years before a demoralising stint with McLaren salvaged only by a victory at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

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After returning to Red Bull as a reserve driver and impressing so far in his stint at AlphaTauri, Ricciardo could go full circle if he replaces Sergio Perez at Red Bull in 2025.

But all those years in the F1 wilderness could have been avoided, according to Horner.

Speaking on the eff won with DRS podcast with Dax Shepherd, Horner said he urged Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz to speak with Ricciardo after Red Bull signed Verstappen to a long-term deal.

“So we gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in 2018 to secure his future,” Horner said.

“Daniel, I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that ‘hang on, I don’t want to be the support act here’.

“And I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear and that this is the money that is also on the table (from other teams).

Daniel Ricciardo shocked Red Bull when he left in 2018. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

“But I remember I spoke to our owner Dietrich Mateschitz before the Austrian Grand Prix, and I said ‘it’s looking a bit marginal with Daniel, can you just show him some love? Because you know, Helmut (Marko), obviously very pro Max. But I think if you could just balance things out, just let him know that you want him’.

“(He said) ‘no problem. I’ll speak to him’. So he took him upstairs after the race in Austria and they were gone for well over an hour and then they re-emerged, they reappeared both with smiles on their faces.

“Dietrich comes up to me, I said ‘well, how did it go?’ And he said ‘no problem. It’s not even a question’.

“I said ‘well, what did you agree with him?’”

He said: “I said, we’ll give him whatever Max is on.”

“I was like ‘wow, do you know what we pay Max?’ And so I gave him the number and he said ‘who the f*** agreed to that?’ and I said ‘well, you’.”

Red Bull offered Ricciardo the same money as Verstappen. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

But Horner recalled Ricciardo still decided to move to Renault despite Mateschitz’s best efforts to reassure him of his future.

“Then he was doing a test for us after the Hungarian race and it was like, Daniel will sign the paperwork on Monday,” Horner said.

“And suddenly Monday goes and he’s in the car on Tuesday. And I’m saying that I’m starting to smell a little bit of a rat here, because this is an enormous (contract), you’d have thought he’d have been in a rush to sign.

“He didn’t sign it before he got in the car in the morning and then now he’s gonna sign out at lunchtime, and that didn’t happen. And then he’s had to get out of the car and go straight to the airport because he’s flying here to LA. He’ll call you when he gets to LA.

“So he rings me and he’s like ‘I’ve just got off the plane. I’ve been thinking on the flight on the way here. I’m not going to sign the contract. I’m going to take another contract’.

“I was like ‘wow, okay, have Mercedes or Ferrari come through with something?’ and he went ‘no, I’m going to sign for Renault’.”

Christian Horner thought Ricciardo was joking about his move to Renault. (Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP)

Horner said he was initially convinced Ricciardo was pulling his leg when he told him he was going to a team that wasn’t a championship contender.

“Because Daniel’s got a sense of humour, I was convinced he’s taking the p*ss here,” he said.

“‘You’re not going to Renault, stop f***ing about, just tell me when you are going to sign that contract’. So after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he was gonna go to Renault and it was disappointing.”

While Verstappen’s career went from strength to strength and he has now claimed three consecutive championships, Red Bull struggled to replace Ricciardo after his shock departure.

Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon were both given a go at being Verstappen’s teammate but were soon given the flick for Perez, who helped Verstappen win the 2021 title and is on track to give Red Bull their first ever 1-2 finish in the drivers’ championship.

Ricciardo fell out of love with Red Bull in 2018. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Ricciardo has publicly stated he has no regrets and was simply ready for a change of team, but Horner said the Aussie called him to confess he was wrong to leave Red Bull.

Horner said: “It actually was during the pandemic year, Daniel called me and he said ‘Christian, I hate to say this but you were absolutely right. And I apologise and all that and so on’.

“We just kept in touch, we’ve always had a good relationship. He’s a good guy. He was just badly advised at the time. Everybody f**ks up at some point.”

Ricciardo has showed glimpses of his best form for AlphaTauri since returning from a broken hand, finishing seventh in Mexico and showing strong race pace in Brazil after his race was ruined when his car was hit by a flying tyre.