Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that he wished he had stayed with Red Bull instead of deciding to leave at the end of the 2018 season.

The Aussie joined Red Bull in 2014 as Mark Webber’s replacement. He spent two years with the junior team, Toro Rosso, and in his first season with the main team, he beat defending four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

Christian Horner felt Ricciardo joined Red Bull at the ‘wrong’ time. They saw him as the heir to Vettel’s throne, but the team did not have the package to fight Mercedes for the title – when they eventually did, Max Verstappen arrived.

Daniel Ricciardo ‘wishes’ he stayed with Red Bull instead of joining Renault

Verstappen joined Red Bull five races into the 2016 season and won on his debut with the team in Barcelona. He quickly established himself as a top talent, and Horner soon favoured him over Ricciardo as the top driver.

By 2018, Red Bull’s unreliable Renault engines and friction with Verstappen led to Ricciardo’s decision to leave the team for 2019. Ricciardo says he did not run from Verstappen, but rather wanted a new challenge as he signed with Renault.

He did not know it at the time, but that would mark the beginning of his regression. After two decent years with Renault, he joined McLaren, but he struggled to adapt to the car and lost his seat in 2023.

Meanwhile, Red Bull and Verstappen started to catch Mercedes, and went on to win four consecutive titles from 2021 to 2024. Looking back, Ricciardo now ‘wishes’ he had stayed put.

“So I don’t want to dismiss that as well and be like, ‘Yeah, I would have beat Max and become world champion’, because it wouldn’t have been an easy task. But I think it’s also maybe unfair towards him to say that.

“If I’m to answer it shortly, yes. I wish I would have stayed, but I don’t know. I also at the time, I left because I felt I was getting a bit comfortable, a bit complacent. I think there was a desire to try something else.

“It’s not that black and white, but if I could have been a world champion, was that my best opportunity? Yes, absolutely. So from that point of view, I would have loved to have known the reality, like another reality if I stayed.

“It’s the one, I don’t want to say it haunts me, but it’s the one unknown that I’m like, ‘I’m interested how that would have panned out.'”

Ricciardo signed as a reserve driver for Red Bull in 2023 and returned to full-time racing with AlphaTauri that year after Nyck de Vries’ sacking. He missed five races with a broken wrist, but still did enough to retain his seat for 2024.

However, his form did not improve, scoring points on three occasions before he lost his seat after the Singapore GP to Liam Lawson. Ricciardo was ‘humiliated’ at the end of his time in F1.

Daniel Ricciardo admits he’s not ‘obsessed’ with racing like Max Verstappen

Ricciardo also opened up on how he did not really enjoy driving in F1 due to the added commitments. He says he is not ‘obsessed’ with it as Verstappen is.

He said: “I think there was a lot of things that I was just a bit over and probably didn’t think I loved, or my relationship with the driving was skewed because of everything else that happens and goes on.

“I knew I still loved the competition, but the rest I didn’t really care for. But now, the last couple years, I’ve really tried to rekindle a relationship with driving.

“I think I’ve understood that I do love driving, just my relationship with driving got a bit messed up and torn over the years. Am I a Max or someone, or an Alonso who can’t breathe without it? No, and I don’t think that’s ever been me.

“But it doesn’t mean I don’t like it, but I definitely think I am a little bit different maybe to most of them who are extremely obsessed. I don’t say that obviously negatively towards them.”

“I look back on a lot of things. The biggest thing is, I think Max is the best example of this, and look, people do it differently, but Max has always put racing first when it comes to the racing.

“He’s never really got two sides and that, look, that’s his personality. So again, not everyone’s the same, but he’s just focused on being the best race car driver in the world, and that’s it. He’s not trying to be a celebrity, he’s not trying to cash in on every deal, he’s just there to kick a–.”