‘It wasn’t the greatest decision of my life’ – Ricciardo reflects on his sliding doors move away from Red Bull in 2018

Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that his departure from Red Bull at the end of 2018 may not have been the “greatest decision” of his career, but the Australian insists he’s determined not to look back and feel “sad or bitter” about any aspect of his time in F1.

After being promoted to the squad from the junior outfit – then known as Toro Rosso – in 2014, Ricciardo went from strength to strength, picking up three wins in his first season and outscoring four-time world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel.

While a winless year followed in 2015, he scored a further four victories during the three seasons that followed, as well as pitting himself against Max Verstappen when the Dutchman joined the team from 2016 onwards.

However, Ricciardo opted to break away from the Red Bull family after 2018 to move to Renault for the following campaign, where he remained for a two-year stint before a particularly challenging couple of seasons followed at McLaren.

The 35-year-old’s contract with the Woking outfit was terminated one year earlier than planned, leading to him returning to the Red Bull fold as a reserve driver in 2023 – before he was then drafted in to replace Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri midway through the season.

Now, off the back of another tough run, Ricciardo’s time in Formula 1 looks to be over for the time being at least, with his seat at RB being given to Liam Lawson for the remainder of 2024.

Given the challenges that the past few years have posed, Ricciardo was asked during a post-race chat with Sky Sports F1 in Singapore if he had any regrets about leaving Red Bull back in 2018.

“I can certainly look back on it and say, ‘okay’… I think at the time obviously in my head everything made sense, but was it the best decision of my career? Of course you could argue, ‘no it wasn’t’.”

“Look, I’m okay with that. It’s one of those ones. Also, there’s no guarantee that if I stayed I would have done amazing and won this and that, so you never know.

“But, of course, I’m not going to stand here and say that was the greatest decision of my life, but you live and you learn, and obviously it eventually brought me back into the family.

“I don’t want to look back and be kind of sad or bitter about anything – everything I guess happens for a reason, so it’s all good.”

Following the confirmation that he would depart RB with immediate effect days after racing in Singapore, Ricciardo took to social media to reflect further on his time in the sport, writing that “it’s been fun and truth be told I wouldn’t change it”.