F1 News: Daniel Ricciardo Branded "Selfish" By Former Team Boss - "Take It Completely Personally"

"He left us too early and he left McLaren too early.”

Former F1 Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul revealed that Daniel Ricciardo was "selfish" for the way he exited the team toward the end of a Covid-struck 2020 season. In addition, he highlights the driver's poor career choices by explaining his early Renault and McLaren exit. 

Ricciardo shocked the grid when he announced his exit from Red Bull in 2018 for Renault. After a rather challenging 2019 season, the Australian driver secured two podium finishes for Renault in the 2020 campaign, which began after he signed a deal to join McLaren.

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Struggling with McLaren as well, Ricciardo agreed to terminate his contract toward the end of 2022. But fast-forward to the end of the 2023 season and you'll notice that the McLaren F1 car is the one that gets closest to Red Bull's title contender. 

Through his appearance on the Dans La Boîte À Gants podcast, Abiteboul revealed his disappointment with Ricciardo's decision to walk away from Renault amidst a pandemic-struck season. He said:

"He makes his decision in April or May; the world is at a standstill, we don’t know how we’re going to get back on track, if we’re going to get back on track.

“In fact, I think it’s a very early move, a bit selfish – because in the end, it will have given the team just one season’s chance, and so it’s true that it’s a decision that I’m taking badly. Badly.”

When asked if he took Ricciardo's decision personally, Abiteboul affirmed saying:

“Of course, because I can see that it’s a personal rejection. I take it completely personally. I accept it. And I can see what the consequences are going to be too.”

Continuing with the Australian driver's encounter with Renault, Abiteboul revealed that Ricciardo took a while to get adjusted to a slower car compared to Red Bull in the first year, but his silly mistakes got the team thinking more. Revealing the tale that followed, he added:

“The team was in the process of structuring itself and getting organised. We’re making progress, but that means we’re not at Red Bull’s level. He came from the standard environment, Red Bull, and so inevitably there was a feeling of being demoted.

“It was difficult for him psychologically. In 2019, the Baku Grand Prix was absolutely horrendous, with him making mistake after mistake. In short, he’s completely out of his depth, and that’s complicated for us.

“I didn’t think it would be this difficult in 2019 and, conversely, I didn’t think that in 2020 there would be Covid, a global pandemic that would block us, and during which he would decide to end his contract at the end of the year. I obviously don’t see that happening.

“And I don’t see it happening either that we [would] have such a good year in 2020, all the same, with podiums and a car that once again, by making a few less mistakes, could [have finished] third in the standings.

“After that, at some point you have to bounce back. And it’s complicated because we issue very cold, very harsh press releases where you can feel the feeling. What’s more, Netflix is probably filming the show at the time, so they’re telling it differently afterwards.

“And the season didn’t turn out at all as we’d imagined, it turned out much better than we’d expected. But at the same time, we set out to do something else. We set off on projects, [signing] Fernando Alonso [as Ricciardo’s replacement].

“I’m completely switching to something else, and I don’t think we had the slightest opportunity to discuss whether [Ricciardo] regretted it, whether we regretted it… In any case, once I’m gone, I’m gone.

“I don’t think [Ricciardo] could have imagined the car making such progress, and neither could we. I can also understand his strategy. McLaren sold him a bit of a bill of goods to get him, but that’s part of the game. Ricciardo always has a timing problem: he left us too early and he left McLaren too early.”

However, Abiteboul revealed that he knew he was signing Ricciardo too soon. But then, he also predicted that he would be sacked in two years. Both his predictions came true as he left Renault at the end of 2020. Recalling the day he signed Ricciardo in 2018, he concluded:

“I know deep down that it’s too soon, even if we can’t say to him: ‘Come back next year.’

“That evening, I went to my favourite restaurant in Marseille with my partner and I said to her: ‘Tonight, we toast two things. One, to the fact that we’ve signed Ricciardo, who’s a great driver. Two, to the fact that in two years’ time, I’ll be sacked’

“Because you sign a two-year contract and I knew that this would ultimately highlight the fact that the team wasn’t yet at the required level and that this could potentially be interpreted as a bad decision.

“Once again, today I have mixed feelings, but on the other hand I didn’t screw up my forecasts.”

Currently, Abiteboul is the team principal of Hyundai’s World Rally Championship operation.