Red Bull regret? Daniel Ricciardo admits Verstappen might have ‘obliterated me’

Daniel Ricciardo fears his F1 career may have “ended even quicker” if he had opted to remain at Red Bull beyond 2018 and found himself “obliterated” by Max Verstappen.

And he has denied that he was “running from a fight” when he opted to join Renault for the 2019 season.

Daniel Ricciardo: Red Bull exit a ‘curiosity’, not a regret

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Ricciardo remains one of the most celebrated F1 drivers of the modern era having claimed eight F1 wins in 257 appearances between 2011 and 2024.

The Australian announced his retirement from motorsport last year, 12 months after his final F1 appearance, before taking an ambassadorial role with Ford, Red Bull’s F1 2026 engine partner.

Ricciardo claimed all but one of his F1 victories with Red Bull before joining Renault – now competing under the banner of Alpine – at the end of 2018.

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Verstappen went on to win four consecutive world championships between 2021 and 2024, with Ricciardo’s final victory occurring with McLaren at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Red Bull has struggled to replace Ricciardo in the years since with current incumbent Isack Hadjar the sixth driver to partner Verstappen since the Australian’s departure.

Ricciardo has stopped short of branding his decision to leave Red Bull a regret, claiming that Verstappen might have “obliterated” him had he stayed.

Yet he has conceded that he would almost certainly have “won more races” had he remained with the Milton Keynes team.

Asked what he would change if he could turn back time, he told The Athletic: “The most obvious ‘what if?’ or whatever, especially for people on the outside, is: ‘What if you stayed at Red Bull after 2018?’

“That’s one where I don’t know. I don’t know if that was the right decision.

“Certainly, there was a bit of emotion in that, but there were reasons I didn’t think it was going to work.

“There’s also a scenario where Max just obliterated me as the years went on and maybe my career ended even quicker. I don’t know.

“At the time, I was competitive with Max and we were pushing each other really well.

“It’s just hard. I’m sure, maybe I would have still won more races than I ended up winning. But I can’t deny that Max is… Max.

“At the time, some of the narrative was all like: ‘Am I kind of running from the fight?’

“I don’t think I was running from the fight. I was just concerned with how things were going to go moving forward.

“I was more concerned about the team dynamic more than running from a fight.

“But am I denying that Max would have been extremely hard to beat? Absolutely not. But I’m curious how that would have turned out.

“I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying [it’s] a regret, but it remains a curiosity.”

Ricciardo’s latest comments come after he admitted last week that he is “grateful” for Racing Bulls’ decision to replace him in 2024 as it stopped him from having to take the decision to retire himself.

Appearing on the Drive podcast alongside Ford CEO Jim Farley, Ricciardo said: “Ultimately, I got let go. That was the reality at the time.

“I think once that happened, I’d been let go twice in the last two years and it had also taken a lot out of me.

“I’d put a lot of my soul into it. I was pretty exhausted by it.

“On reflection, I was grateful that they made the decision for me. I think it would have been hard to be like: ‘I’m done.’

“I think I knew I was probably done because I knew it was harder for me to perform at the level I could.

“For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something and it’s OK to admit it.”

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