Horner: Ricciardo apologised; everyone f@cks up at some point

It was big news when Renault F1 team boss at the time, Cyril Abiteboul, scooped Ricciardo from Renault. There had been bad blood between Red Bull and its engine supplier at the time. The Australian's defection was a bit like 'sleeping with the enemy and then marrying it' for good measure.

History shows that it was one of the worst career decisions by an F1 driver since Fernando Alonso joined McLaren for a second time. In essence, Ricciardo walked away from a winning team because he felt Max Verstappen was the 'chosen one' by Red Bull. Hence he copped out of taking on the Dutchman and opted for a big paycheque and, in retrospect, eventual oblivion.

Since then F1 stats have not been kind to Ricciardo: 29 of his 32 GP podiums were scored when he drove for Red Bull, as were seven of his eight wins. The last win of his career came at the Italian Grand Prix when Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton took each other out. It was fortuitous, unlike most of his other wins on merit.

McLaren proved to be the final straw, as the Ricciardo of old, the send-it-from-nowhere guy with the biggest smile in the paddock, simply vanished. The driving was gone, his 'shares' slumped and the trademark smile became a frown turned upside down.

The rot really set in when Zak Brown opted to buy Daniel out of his contract. McLaren and their beleaguered driver agreed they were going nowhere despite their concerted efforts to prevent Lando Norris, in the sister car, from destroying Ricciardo every race weekend. Adding insult to injury, in his place came rookie Oscar Piastri.

Furthermore, no other team wanted him. Not even Williams who opted for rookie Logan Sargeant alongside Alex Albon. Ricciardo was out of F1... Until Red Bull welcomed their prodigal son back to the team he departed five years ago and the rest, as they say, is recent history. He will remain as Yuki Tsunoda's teammate in the team for 2024.

In a nutshell, 34-year-old Ricciardo is back in the Bull-pen. Back where he began after a half-season stint with HRT, namely Toro Rosso, aka AlphaTauri. Now with an eye very much on being Verstappen's teammate again at RBR. And the way it's going with Sergio Perez's form, it could still happen.

Looking back on when Ricciardo jumped ship, speaking on the EffWon podcast, Horner recalled: "I think he recognised that he made a mistake. He had no good advice around him at the point that he left us. Whoa, actually what I had was really good."

Without citing a specific date, Horner revealed: "It was during the pandemic, I remember he called me and he said: Christian, I hate to say this to you, but you were absolutely right, and I apologise; and so on. There was an element of [spite] at the time, the thinking was: You know what? Okay. Go and suck on the lemon for a bit.

"He was very badly advised in his earlier career. Everybody f@cks up at some point," reckoned Horner, whose team is now on the receiving end of great dividends for identifying the genius of Verstappen and tying him up to a very long-term deal.

Horner reasoned: "We gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in 2018 to secure his future. Daniel, I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that: Hang on, I don't want to be the support act here."

"I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear that this was the Max show. Money was also on the table..." added the Red Bull F1 boss.

Verstappen has gone on to rack up 47 GP victories, adding to the five he scored while Ricciardo's teammate. The Dutchman has also won three F1 world titles, making one wonder - surely Daniel has at some point - how different things might've been had he hung around.