30/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Helmut Marko believes that when Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull for Renault in 2019 he lost his "killer instinct".
While he received a mega pay rise from the French team, it was widely believed that the Australian feared that Red Bull was fact becoming Max Verstappen's team.
Ricciardo, who had previously seen off Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, having seen the writing on the wall opted to join the French outfit even though it was clear that it was not a competitive force in the hybrid era.
Effectively wasting two seasons of his career Ricciardo then jumped ship to McLaren which was not only keen to have a driver of his experience on board but also appreciated that the sport's increasing popularity was in no small part due to Drive to Survive in which the Australian was one of the true stars.
However, other than the fact that the car never suited his style, much like Verstappen at Red Bull, the Woking team had its own 'favoured son', Lando Norris.
Though Ricciardo gave the team a historic win at Monza in 2021, he was clearly struggling and his situation wasn't helped early the following season when Zak Brown claimed that the Australian hadn't lived up to expectations.
Dropped at season end he returned to the Red Bull family as reserve driver, subsequently replacing Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri, only to be replaced himself for a number of races after crashing at Zandvoort.
Returning for the final races of 2023, other than a seventh in Mexico, Ricciardo was unable to make much of an impression, a situation not helped by the fact that teammate Yuki Tsunoda raised his game and provided the points that saw the Faenza-based outfit leapfrog Haas and Alfa Romeo and almost overhaul Williams.
Despite the shortcomings of the 2024 car, Ricciardo has once again failed to convincingly 'see off' Tsunoda - the favoured son of Honda if not Red Bull - and not long in to the season there were rumours of the Australian being dropped.
Suddenly, the man who had dreamed of returning to the 'big team' found his future with the 'little sister' under threat.
When it was announced in June that Tsunoda had been retained for 2025 - just weeks after Laurent Mekies had claimed the full-line up would be retained - it was clear there was an issue, and while there was a stay of execution over the summer break in Singapore speculation reached fever pitch with the 'dirty deed' confirmed days later.
As the post mortems on what had all the signs of a promising career begin, Helmut Marko believes that it all went wrong for Ricciardo when he left Red Bull.
"I think the decision to leave Red Bull Racing was the turning point in his career," he tells Motorsport Total. "Then he didn't have a winning car at either Renault or McLaren.
"He did win at Monza, but those were special circumstances," he adds, the Australian having benefitted from one of several Hamilton/Verstappen clashes that year.
"I don't know what exactly happened, because if we knew, we would have helped him," insists Marko . "But the speed and, above all, this late braking, and then he goes left or right, in these last few years he tried but it was no longer there, the killer instinct was gone."
Rather than Verstappen being the 'favoured son', Marko claims that another factor in Ricciardo's decision was that the Australian didn't believe he could beat the Dutchman.
"He had certain reservations about the Honda engine and apparently he listened more to the sweet talk of Renault and Cyril Abiteboul. Financially, there wasn't much difference between what Renault offered him and what we offered.
"I also told him, 'shoeys will be hard for you'. I don't think we've seen Renault on the podium a lot. He came to us, beating Vettel with three-to-zero victories in 2014 and after that, Daniil Kvyat was faster than him at times, but over the season he also had him under control.
"And then Max came and he got stronger and stronger, so that was certainly one of the reasons for his decision to choose Renault over us."
Christian Horner has made no secret of the fact that he was gobsmacked at Ricciardo's decision to join Renault, and it is believed that the Briton was also keen to see the Australian given every chance this season, but that Marko was pushing hard for Lawson to be given the opportunity as the man behind the Red Bull Junior programme seeks to re-establish RB as Red Bull's proving ground.