{"id":590000,"date":"2026-04-06T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590000\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:40:12","slug":"daniel-ricciardo-admits-to-red-bull-curiosity-with-max-verstappen-f1-hypothesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590000\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo admits to Red Bull ‘curiosity’ with Max Verstappen F1 hypothesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that it is a \u201ccuriosity\u201d of his to wonder how his Formula 1<\/a> career may have transpired if he had stayed at Red Bull, despite acknowledging how tough being teammates with Max Verstappen would have been.<\/p>\n

The Australian is perhaps one of F1\u2019s greatest \u2018what ifs?\u2019 given the extreme level of talent he had that went unfulfilled.<\/p>\n

After outscoring Sebastian Vettel in his first year with the Milton Keynes-based squad<\/a>, Ricciardo was tipped as a future F1 champion, but his relationship with the team soured.<\/p>\n

With the emergence of Max Verstappen, Ricciardo opted to leave Red Bull and join Renault for the 2019 season, prompting then-Team Principal Christian Horner to claim he was \u201crunning from a fight\u201d with the youngster from Holland.<\/p>\n

After his departure from Red Bull, Ricciardo managed just one more Grand Prix win \u2013 with McLaren at Monza in 2021 \u2013 before returning to its fold via Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n

But the old Ricciardo magic was never quite the same, and his career ended in Singapore in 2024, making way for Liam Lawson, bringing a promising chapter to a close<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Athletic, Ricciardo made the confession that he has wondered what may have transpired, but concluded that it was possible that Verstappen may have put him in the shade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most obvious \u2018what if?\u2019 or whatever, especially for people on the outside, is: \u2018What if you stayed at Red Bull after 2018?\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one where I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know if that was the right decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, there was a bit of emotion in that, but there were reasons I didn\u2019t think it was going to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also a scenario where Max just obliterated me as the years went on and maybe my career ended even quicker. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I was competitive with Max and we were pushing each other really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just hard. I\u2019m sure, maybe I would have still won more races than I ended up winning. But I can\u2019t deny that Max is\u2026 Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DanielDaniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen famously clashed in Baku in 2018, with Ricciardo soon leaving the team to join Renault<\/p>\n

Daniel Ricciardo pinpoints \u2018team dynamic\u2019 rather than fear for Red Bull exit<\/p>\n

Ricciardo denied that the common conclusion that he was backing out of a direct intra-team competition with Verstappen was correct, stating he only feared the \u201cteam dynamic\u201d rather than the teammate situation itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, some of the narrative was all like: \u2018Am I kind of running from the fight?\u2019 he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I was running from the fight. I was just concerned with how things were going to go moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was more concerned about the team dynamic more than running from a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut am I denying that Max would have been extremely hard to beat? Absolutely not. But I\u2019m curious how that would have turned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019d go as far as saying [it\u2019s] a regret, but it remains a curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ricciardo was, at one stage, looking like the natural successor to Vettel, but Verstappen\u2019s immediate impact upon arriving at Red Bull was huge. The collision between the two in Baku no doubt helped sow the seeds of contention.<\/p>\n

It is truly a shame that someone so talented and so likeable was unable to maximise their potential, but Ricciardo can be safe in the knowledge that whilst never an F1 champion, he will always be one of the most popular drivers of the last decade.<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Christian Horner backed to take Audi F1 Team Principal job<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that it is a \u201ccuriosity\u201d of his to wonder how his Formula 1 career…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,806,805,803,804,15196,288164,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-590000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-redbull","17":"tag-ricciardo","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}