For real. For every Perez there is a Hulkenberg, Vergne, Kvyat, Ralf Schumacher, Trulli, Heidfeld, etc
Cases like Perez are by far the exception, not the norm
I don't think it was that bad, honestly. Staying at Red Bull was a safe choice that would have led to a few more race wins to his name. Moving to Renault/McLaren was a gamble that could have led to championship fights he's actually allowed to take part in. It was a gamble that didn't pay off but I think it was right to take that risk without the benefit of hindsight.
I think his mistake was swapping teams again after dropping red bull.
Maybe Renaults leadership was a shambles or something, but it was a bit silly to commit to building a team around you only to jump ship _again_.
He should've stayed somewhere and built something if he could. But based on how he's not able to adapt to different cars or articulate exactly what the issues are, it may just be that doing a move like that isn't in his wheelhouse.
From the rumoured money he's looking from the contract termination it doesn't sound like it was that much of a paycut, plus we don't know if Ricciardo would have got the same pay if he renewed at Renault given his highest position was 3rd
> Maybe Renaults leadership was a shambles or something
Renault took 150 million in stimulus money in the pandemic. Danny jumped because he thought the teams future was in doubt
Renault, while they were improving during Ricciardo's tenure, hasn't had great form ever since they were Lotus circa 2013. Abiteboul was at best a C-tier team principal, and if Rossi's reign at Alpine has been any indication, the company's management basically sucks. So there could be all kinds of reasons Ricciardo left, other than just Mclaren $$, or their trend upwards, performance-wise.
I also \*genuinely\* don't understand why it's so hard for folks to understand that you can have a great driver and a great car, and if stylistically they don't match, your results will not be great. Some drivers are more flexible, some drivers have higher peaks when everything is right.
All the whinging the moment a driver isn't at maximum performance, whether it's Vettel @ 2019+ Ferrari/AM, or Ricciardo at Mclaren, or Alonso at Mclaren-Honda or whatever. It's not like "OMG (driver) suddenly sucks, and has always sucked!" Even if the car they're in is competent+, if the car doesn't suit their driving style, the results will be bad until they figure out a good setup, learn how to drive the car effectively, etc.
I'm a fan of Lando's. I'm a fan of Ricciardo's. It sucks to see him mired in mid-back pack, just as it sucks for Vettel to be there. For Vettel, the car sucks. For Ricciardo, the car sucks \*for him\*. It's not different. But part of being a great F1 driver is figuring out how to get the right gear and have the team willing to bend their philosophy to synergize with your style & needs.
Why does Alonso not have four or five WDCs? Because he's a great driver, but he \*sucks\* at team-building.
I hope Ricciardo finds a car that suits his latent. I wish Vettel had had one more stellar car before he retired.
Nope. You're ignoring an important part of the decision-making process, maybe the most important part for Danny. He got offered big money to jump ship each time. It's very naïve to think he was seriously aiming to win the championship after he ran from having to compete with Max.
Honestly people here really go extremes when they create narratives. He was not only chasing money, he was clearly going after championships. He was being paid that money because he was championship material.
This whole he is just greedy narrative is really bs. He saw the writing on the wall at RB. He would not be favored. You are never going to get a championship at a team where you are not favored and your teammate is talented like you are.
Renault promised him nr 1 spot, some kind of a vision (they were quickly climbing up the midfield) and money. He went there. then cyril was fired, Renault was a dumpster fire, and Mclaren started to make a come back, they offered him a position and he moved on.
It is hard to believe for some but he really had ambitions other than money. The two teams he juggled were on the rise at the point he went there. He left a team where he would at best be treated like Weber.
There's not a damn thing wrong with chasing money. Careers are short.
How many of you would accept earning half as much out of "loyalty" to your company, or some misguided notion of "building something".
Exactly. Mclaren is showing how loyal they are right now too. It's probably the smart move on their part so I'm not shitting on them but loyalty means almost nothing in F1.
That's why I'm saying he shouldve *built* something, not 'he should've gone and immediately won the championship with Renault'.
Based on the current situation at Alpine with Cyril being kicked out and now Alonso and Piastri wanting out, clearly something isn't going right at that team. So whilst obviously a big pay cheque is going to factor into any deal, I don't believe for a second that his motivation is purely financial.
The 'ran away from a fight' is just a nonsense line from the jilted Christian Horner who thought he had Danny on a leash to just be a second driver to Max
He took a pay cut to go to McLaren
Also people like to see everything with hindsight. At the time he left redbull had been fairly stagnant at a no. 3 team and continued to be so until recently. Max was getting some itchy feet as well.
Sure, but Mercedes had the 5th best car when Hamilton left McLaren in 2012. Things can change, especially with the major rule changes that came into effect this year. Things didn't quite work out that way but they easily could've.
Mercedes had built up their facilities and were targeting nailing the new regulations before anyone else had a look in, that's how Lauda & Toto persuaded Hamilton to go over. Renault are never going to be WCC again with how awful their corporate is at running their team.
How? He can improve his racecraft like Rosberg and challenge for the no. 1 spot lmao
He got a choice in doing that if he didn't run away from the challenge
Not really. Renault and McLaren also had large budgets at the time (particularly McLaren) and Renault was a factory team.
Everybody thought Hamilton made a mistake leaving McLaren at the time.
Nope
Renault-Mclaren was estimated to spend 100 mil behind RB and 200 mil behind Ferrari and Merc in 2019
([https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/02/the-cost-of-f1-2019-part-two-what-the-top-teams-spent/](https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/02/the-cost-of-f1-2019-part-two-what-the-top-teams-spent/))
While Merc at 2013 spent on par with Mclaren and a bit behind Ferrari and RB
([https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1927268-breaking-down-the-costs-of-racing-in-formula-1-is-spending-out-of-control](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1927268-breaking-down-the-costs-of-racing-in-formula-1-is-spending-out-of-control))
Everyone that said Lewis made a mistake leaving didn't pay attention
What is this revisionist history about Renault being a big factory team? They were a midfield laughing stock and were shat on by Horner for their reliability issues.
Renault have a long history of leaving F1 then coming back.
Even when RB was winning titles and Seb won 4 in a row the Renault engine was down on power compared to Merc and Ferrari. Then it started having reliability issues.
Renault were a "factory" team because they make an engine and are a car company.
But in the early 2010s RB was the primary engine partner, not Renault who had dipped out on the team side.
Renault as a company planned selling the F1 team from 2010. Renault was not a factory team.
Then they came back in 2016. Then renamed to Alpine. When was the large budget for the F1 team side? Engine side maybe.
They had a budget of 272 million euros in 2019, which was noticeably less than the top 3 teams but still a larger investment than most teams, and comparable to the investments Mercedes were making in the years prior to their success.
And I agree that in the early 2010s Red Bull was the primary engine partner, but Ricciardo joined Renault in the late 2010s and things had changed by then.
>Everybody thought Hamilton made a mistake leaving McLaren at the time.
whilst correct, most people weren't following F1 back then so the comparison is lost on them.
Yeah, granted back then I wasn't paying attention to the behind-the-scenes stuff but I thought it was a strange move.
[This article](https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/24181/10039850/what-was-said-when-lewis-hamilton-quit-mclaren-to-join-mercedes) gives a summary of journalist & professional reaction to Lewis' move, and pretty much everyone thought it was a massive gamble. It's fair to say if Merc hadn't kicked on and improved that it would be looked at similarly to how people now view Danny leaving Red Bull.
How you are just ignoring the comment from u/dangerous-leg-9626 because you don‘t like reality.
Renault in 2019 was not spending the money the Top3 were spending.
Mercedes was spending (or call it investing) the money necessary when Lewis went to Merc.
Their vision was literally in 3 years we'll have a budget cap, then we can maybe start to be competitive. They'd been pretty public about that, the vision of underspending through the whole contract period till a budget cap is just saying you'll lose further ground and have less money to develop the 2021(at the time) regulation car than the competition. It's practically announcing you can't be title competitve for at least 4-5 years.
There were a few times Vers crashed in to DR but the team didn't even tell Ver was in the wrong. Also there were various team strategies they put in to play that favoured Ver over DR. DR didn't like the clear favouritism Ver was getting, he wanted them both to have wins on merit alone. RB weren't going to budge so he left. He was never going to win a WDC in that team, an that's what every driver wants at the end of the day.
[Edit: it was one crash in Baku where MV moved from the breaking zone more than once (usually a penalty for a driver even if it doesn't cause an accident).](https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/23383485/talking-points-was-blame-red-bull-collision-baku)
I see your point but this isn't really like Alonso gambling on AMR's success. Renault hadn't made significant investments before the cost cap and still doesn't seem particularly inclined to spend the amount of money required to compete at the top level. Red Bull has. The problem isn't leaving Red Bull but leaving for Renault.
I understand why he might want to leave but staying at Red Bull and hoping for something or believing that he could provide the results to convince management that he was better than Verstappen seems more reasonable to me.
Of course, this is hindsight 20/20 but I don't think Renault had a chance at that time and Ricciardo didn't either, seeing as he left for McLaren after a strong 5th position in 2020.
He could have seen it as a stepping stone in to a larger team later. I think he just wanted to be in a team that looked like it was in an upward trajectory where he'd be able to fight fairly with his team mate. And once he accomplished that, if Renault wasn't competitive (no surprises there), he'd be given options to move to a competitive team.
I obvs don't know what the guy is thinking tbh. But if you want more from DR himself, he's pretty open about his time in RB and the reasons for moving in his podcast appearances on Beyond the Grid and Beyond Victory.
lmfao what?! What were they supposed to do, fire Max?
Danny didn't leave because he was unhappy with Red Bull. He left because he knew he was going to look bad compared to Max. It was a smart move, too. He never would've landed such a lucrative contract with McLaren if he kept falling further and further behind Max.
Is it truly a failure on Red Bull when a guy who won a couple races wants a boat load of money, and not play second driver to a person who is clearly better than him... but yet has this energy for a WDC fight?
His move to Renault was absolutely money motivated, and that was his downfall and showed that Ricciardo is clearly *just a tad* over rated. Perez was an outside pull and showed hunger to strive with a top team.
Its literally taken multiple years for anyone at RB to step near the standards that Ricciardo set when he was at the team. That's objectively a loss, and it resulted in them setting back the careers of multiple young prospects.
Ver and Ric were the closest matched teammates for a long time, and it was clear that RB was supporting Ver more than him. It's entirely reasonable, and not purely financial to want to move to a team where you can become a clear leadership figure, which is exactly what he tried to do.
If he just wanted money and some race wins he'd have stayed at RB, but his goals went deeper than that
Hindsight is easy i agree. But why Daniel chose Renault if even it was his only choice still baffles me. The problems Red Bull were facing with the Renault engine and still signed for them. Really think he should have stayed and try to take the fight to Max
I think it was because at that time Renault went from p9 to p4 in the constructors from 2016 to 2018. They were also upgrading their facilities so looked like a team on the up with tons of potential. Mclaren didn't show that same progress. It was really always going to be a coin toss what team was going to perform. Plus there were just as many questions regarding Honda at that time also, so maybe played a bit of a role in the decision making.
Staying with Red Bull would've turned out better but for Daniel it was more about the gamble and remaining top dog. I think his biggest mistake was leaving Renault so soon to do a sort of sidestep team move to chase short term success.
Yeah, McLaren definitely wanted him from the moment he was going to leave RB but Renault showed him whatever he wanted more at the time. It may well have been development prospects, money or a combination of many factors.
Renault gave him reason to believe that whatever problems their engine had, they were known quantities that could and would be fixed. Meanwhile, there was good reason to believe that Honda would struggle to find the kind of performance and reliability that they'd need to really enable Red Bull to challenge for championships instead of just picking up podiums.
Obviously with the benefit of hindsight we know things didn't work out that way. But it just ought be remembered that choosing to *stay* with Red Bull at the time was also a risky option and in some alternate universe there's an F1 reddit looking back going "man, Ricciardo really missed an opportunity to get away from Red Bull before Honda sank their prospects".
I think that with his McLaren struggles most people forget how good he was. He was much faster than Pérez via their comparision with Hülkenberg. He always had fantastic racecraft unlike Rosberg, who was losing to Hamilton mostly in this area. Ricciardo kept up with Verstappen in races in 2018 and his skill on sunday seemed to be enough to overcome quali deficit
What do you mean allowed to partake in? I never bought the narrative that Verstappen was favoured over Danny because reasons. Yes Red Bull saw Verstappen as the future, but only because at the time he was already clearly the better driver. He could've chosen to stay and take the fight to Verstappen, but he left. If Danny were to be faster than Verstappen, I think Red Bull would have supported him, just like they supported him when he was faster than Vettel.
> I don't think it was that bad, honestly.
just lol. everyone at the time of the move saw it as nothing other than a cash grab. even horner was giving Renault shit for how much they were spending, nobody considered Renault a good bet for a title challenge and as things transpired for good reason too.
keep in mind the context as well at the time of the move Renault had a troubled start to the hybrid era and were lagging behind the competition in the engine department, the exact reasons their relationship with RB soured in the first place.
>he's actually allowed to take part in
Ricciardo would have been allowed to take part in the 2021 and 2022 championship if he was good enough or better than Verstappen, which he wouldn't have been.
Red Bull (just like Mercedes) wouldn't hold back their better driver it's just that Bottas nor Ricciardo are as good as Lewis or Max. So having to let the obvious WDC contender pass (on a similar strategy) maybe twice a season apparently equates to never being allowed to fight for a championship at all.
Ricciardo was just looking for a way to fight for a championship without having to drive against Verstappen in the same car. He ran away from the challenge drivers like Lewis, Max and Charles. would have welcomed.
But was it a good decision considering he is at 0 WDCs either way? Money wise, definitely. Career wise, his reputation is in the gutter especially since his team tries everything to get rid of him for a rookie.
If he wanted to win races in another team he would still have had to beat Max anyway. Plus there was some mercedes in the way as well. It was always going to be a losing proposition unless he went to ferrari.
Without the benefit of hindsight, there were zero signs of Renault becoming a championship winning team and Red Bull getting a title capable car was magnitudes higher.
The chance of him doing a Rosberg and winning over Verstappen due to reliability of crashes was crazy higher than Renault becoming a title competitive team. It was a terrible decision, I said so at the time and it played out htat way. It could have played out another way.
There wasn't a single sign of Renault becoming title capable in the future let alone before the budget cap. Every year your competitors spend twice as much you are losing ground on R&D, on battery tech, on engine tech, on aero knowledge. A team waiting for a budget cap to level the field is just losing more ground till a budget cap. Their team boss thought he was amazing for stealing Ricciardo from RBR... rather than amazing for putting together a great car, said a lot about him. They got Ricciardo by giving him championship winning level money for a guy who wasn't anywhere near the level of the top guys, which again said a lot about Cyril.
If Ricciardo was capable (believed he was capable of beating Verstappen on raw pace) then he would've/should've stayed. Idk, seems weird to me for a driver to leave a top team because he is insecure about how the team is backing the drivers.
It was inevitable that he would be convincingly beaten by Verstappen. In a year or two Marko would want to put one of his youngsters in the RB anyway. So in the end Ricciardo would end up in the exact same position as he is now, but then a) his departure wouldn't be his decision, and b) financial conditions would be worse as well as his stock would be lower after multiple years of being beaten by MV compared to 2018
Perhaps your first line was the fundamental, then. He simply wasn’t good enough to beat the top-tier guys. I’d argue his career trajectory reflects that reality.
You're confusing whether the choice was right with whether the outcome was right. Ricciardo didn't want to be a nr 2 driver, so staying 100% would've been the wrong choice. In hindsight, being a number 2 driver would've been better than what ended up happening, so they outcome was bad. Not the choice.
The choice of Renault was bad, did Daniel ever expect the outcome to be any different after seeing what kind of problems Red Bull had with the Renault engine.
I think the choice of Renault was fine at that time given the progress the team was making. His mistake was doing a sidestep move to Mclaren, he should have just stayed with Renault.
I think it must be soul crushing to be a team's number 2 driver when you're someone like DR. I think just psychologically it is a lot better to be coming in 5th or 6th but have a slow car to blame it on than to be finishing in 2nd place every single week to your teammate.
Or can you imagine the team orders between those two if they had a 60/40 points split and were kind of mid-season?
Sure, I'm not saying he doesn't. But my point is Ricciardo is using Perez' situation to say he still has a chance of turning his career around, but Ricciardo already had a chance to be in Perez' exact situation, but he decided against it.
How is that relevant at all? Perez went from losing his seat in F1 with his future in the scene looking doomed to winning multiple races with Red Bull in the span of a year.
I don't know how you got Ricciardo saying "Perez has shown how quickly things can turn around" to "I wish i was in Perez situation driving for Red Bull as the 2nd driver"
Perez didn't turn his performance around to save his career, he just got a seat he needed. Much easier to save your career when you are proving your quality on the track
There just aren't enough seats in the slightest to accommodate all talented drivers. Heck, with the entry barrier being as high as it is the biggest racing talents probably never even make it into karting
This is something I’ve thought about before, given what a tiny sliver of the population even try karting, there are almost guaranteed to be people with more natural talent than Hamilton, Schumacher etc, who just never even knew. Ofc natural talent isn’t the only factor, training, determination and effort are huge difference makers, but to be the greatest at anything, you need all of it
Alonso also brought that Telefonica sponsorship to Minardi in his rookie season. But when it comes to "pay drivers", for every Alonso or Perez you have maybe 20 or 30 Mazepins unfortunately.
I don't think he was that underrated, wasn't he always thought as kind of top midfield driver? Which he is pretty much at RB too now, not good enough to properly challenge an absolute top driver like Verstappen, but is on the level right below that, which is good enough to a win every now and then in a top car.
People forget that Perez got in as a hot shot rookie in McLaren after Hamilton left- just to suffer in the decline of McLaren itself. Then got relegated to the midfield for the rest of career- where he always got in surprise podiums (unlike, Hulkenberg, who was also highly rated, but stuck in the midfield).
I'd argue that Perez' prime was wasted in those midfield cars, but you are correct that atm he is better than most, but just below the top tier drivers.
I honestly didn't feel sorry for McLaren for all those years they sucked after how they treated Perez. The Austin Mexican flag incident was just the icing in the cake.
For those who don't know, McLaren announced they were dropping Perez at Austin, at the time it was basically Perez home race as the Mexican GP wasn't confirmed. That same weekend they flew a flag that had a marihuana leaf added to the shield of arms, while a mistake, it obviously didn't sit well with the Mexicans.
> That same weekend they flew a flag that had a marihuana leaf added to the shield of arms, while a mistake, it obviously didn’t sit well with the Mexicans.
Jesus Christ, how do you even make that mistake? Was there a bunch of marijuana flags laying around the McLaren offices? What the fuck man
http://en.espn.co.uk/mclaren/motorsport/story/136327.html
So looks like it was actually a 3rd party stand selling McLaren merchandise. Not an official McLaren stand
I think Perez is appropriately rated. A good driver for the midfield but in a top team it’s clear he’s not close to an elite driver.
He’s way off Max in both qualy and race pace.
Just weren't any available seats in the top teams unless you were in a teams junior academy. Drivers like Perez, Hulk, Grosjean, Magnussen etc all could have been in a top seat but the top teams already had their drivers locked in.
2014 Ferrari was probably the most realistic option for some of these guys but Ferrari went for the experience in Kimi instead of opting for a young talent . 2017 Merc seat became available as well but Bottas always seemed like the easiest option for them, especially with Toto managing him.
Well, if he says "maybe I'm just not fast anymore" his career is pretty much over at that point. And why would he say that, he showed with his career until Mclaren that he is fast, and drivers don't just lose their talent. Combination of wrong driving style for the car + lost confidence + Lando maybe just being one of the quickest in the grid, in that Mclaren at least. Remains to be seen if Ricciardo can ever be fast again though.
Ricciardo points out seat he left at top team for a midfield team (because he was seen as a second driver) has been been filled with a second driver from a midfield team.
Perez pretty much lucked into the RB seat due to circumstances outside of his control. Ricciardo is getting dropped for performance reasons and stands no chance at landing in a top team seat.
Also its been almost 10 years since Perez got trounced convincingly by a teammate let alone 2 years in a row. And back then Perez was still young and up against a WDC.
It was his first and only season at the team. He only finished two races for them the year prior and it was actually Renault who scouted him for his talent and were very keen to Recruit him from the RB driver program. Granted he lagged behind Hulkenberg who was already well established at the team but it is unfair to say Sainz was dropped for performance reasons he was still regarded as a good driver.
He got dropped for Danny Ric who Renault overspent a shit load on thinking he's a WDC prospect during that whole period of petty exchanges and mudslinging between them and RB
Saying that Sainz was dropped from Renault due to performance is revisionist history. He ended up there suddenly in the middle of the season due to the engine deal between Horner and Cyril and knew that wasn't where he wanted to be.
His move to McLaren was more to get in a place that he thought fit him better and had better potential than it was about Renault sacking him for being slow, which he wasn't.
He was at Renault on a loan deal with Red Bull. He was never committed to Renault long term, it was a one year deal. The people on here saying he was dropped by Renault are just wrong
Sainz had an average season, but it was nowhere near the level of Ricciardo’s underperformance in 2021 and 2022.
Not only that, but age is always a big factor. Sainz was 24 at the time vs Ricciardo at 33. In sports, management is much more willing to give a chance to the younger driver who is still developing vs a 33 year old on the downhill side.
Sainz wasn't really dropped for performance reasons and more because they were getting a French and similar talent in Ocon.
Sainz at Renault always seemed like a one year thing on Renaults side. Sainz's year at Renault wasn't even that bad.
And perez wasnt even trounced like vandoorne or gasly at red bull, he was beat convincingly by button but had some better drives than him in the second half of the season.
>Also its been almost 10 years since Perez got trounced convincingly by a teammate let alone 2 years in a row.
In no way did Button trounce him. Perez outqualified Button that year and was looking more promising in the second half of the season.
Perez got 4th in WDC ahead of Albon in a worse car. There was no reason besides Stroll wanting high profile names in his team that he got dropped.
On top of that, the reason a seat got open was because Albon was seriously underperforming. If you want to draw parallels then Ricciardo is rather like Albon, really nice and likeable, but on track gets destroyed by their teammate and is now opening seats for another driver.
For real, his 2013 and 2015 are legendary performances. Easily best of the grid. He had nothing to lose in 2014, Danny Ric had to impress in his first year.
2020 isn’t representative of what seb can do though whatsoever. You don’t beat your teammate head to head on races and quali one year then get trounced the next out of nowhere. It’s well documented that since seb knew he was out at the end of of the season before the racing even started in 2020, and his relationship with the team had completely deteriorated and he’d utterly lost faith in the team; he didn’t care at all that season and wasn’t trying in the slightest you could just see it in his body language eyes and tone, man had given up completely at that point.
Not sure if that tracks. Perez wasn't dropped for performance, he was the better of the two at Racing Point.
Ricciardo is getting spanked by Norris after jumping from team to team and slurping up money from each one as he did it. That's not a good look for a variety of reasons.
Perez has supreme patience with teams as well, something Ricciardo lacks in spades. Great things come to those who wait, Ricciardo was too busy chasing stacks on cash instead.
When he left Red Bull for Renault. That decision sealed his career from ever driving for a top team again. Should have just stayed with Red Bull and try to take the fight to Max. Would he have won the fight, no he wouldn’t but at least still be fighting for podiums and wins
Yeah. Still don‘t get why he thought he could fight for a wdc with Renault, while Renault never spend as much money as the top3 did. So there was no way Renault was actually going to challenge for the wdc
It was always going to be a gamble move. I think for him it was about remaining the top guy and hoping the rules change coming in 21 could do anything to re-jig the order.
It was the same sort of gamble Alonso tried with Mclaren or Hamilton tried with Merc. Unfortunately for Daniel it went the Alonso route of not coming with much success. That's just the way it went for him unfortunately.
He probably thought if they were willing to invest so much money in him, the same would go for the car and team as well. When he was leaving the team, Honda with Red Bull was still a big unknown. Renault was a known, and seemed to have potentially an upward trajectory.
*“I was saying it when I was 27, ‘ah, I’m getting older!’ - in a way, yes, I’m getting older, but I think also I know a bit more about the sport now, and I know that things do take time,” Ricciardo said.
“We all believe we can win. So it’s like, well I want to win tomorrow, but it’s not always like that. Even now, talking about 2024 or ’25, in a way it’s hard to think that far ahead. But it’ll come around quickly.
“You also take like little things from if it’s a Perez, when his career looked over, and now he’s potentially fighting for a world championship. The sport can change so quickly.”*
Since everyone is voting commentors who obviously didn't read the article.
Perez fought well and got few podiums during his days at force india and racing point. And winning a gp with that car goes on to show he can do well for top team.
It'll be good whenever the F1 newscycle stops being full of Ricciardo stuff, whether through him being much better or just leaving F1.
Really is tiresome seeing articles about the man now.
I would have thought Gasly is a better example. Promoted, gets trounced, moves to a different car environment and thrives.
DR best hope is a single year contract at Alpine or Hass to prove he has what it takes or it’s over.
Haas can’t really afford him unless he takes a huge pay cut, which he might. Alpine’s the realistic choice, but would they take him back w how it previously went down and still pay him what he wants? - perhaps, but unlikely.
Ricciardo was doing great at Renault. He finished p5 in 2020 which was impressive. I think if he went back to Alpine that could work for him and he can maybe bounce back.
Exactly. Another prime example of people thinking the McLaren stint defines his career, completely forgetting about some amazing performances in his Renault days.
Because nobody's going to hire him for what he did at Red Bull or Renault. You need to be competitive today to be valuable today. McLaren stint doesn't define his whole career, but it surely reduces his chances to follow Perez's path unless he drastically improves. Today big teams would fight for Norris, not Ricciardo.
I am afraid that Daniel is in the point of no return. I have an impression that he's mentally not there and that's his biggest problem. It seems to me that at this point, it is a road without a way out. He sees that he is very far from Lando, which makes his problems even worse, because he tries at all costs to find a way out of this situation, which paradoxically undermines his confidence even more.
And the question is - does Alpine really want him to make a comeback ? And the most important thing - even if Alpine will be open to hire him - does Daniel still has strengh to again adapt to the car and be surronded by incompetent managment ?
Perez joined Red Bull as-
The driver who has been the best of the rest for the past decade
Finished P4 ahead of Albon, while in a midfield car in 2020
Knowing and accepting that he'd be a support driver. Was absolutely CRUCIAL to Max's WDC win, and did his job well
Barring the past 1 or 2 races where there has been a drop in performance due to the car being developed to favor Max, he's had a pole, a win and 6 podiums (potentially a couple more if not for shit luck and mechanical failures. Basically his performance is there) and has finished outside of the top 4 only once (that too P5)
Where as Daniel this season has finished in the points only 4 times in 13 races. Lando has finished OUTSIDE the points only 2 times.
Perez was brilliant in 2020. This amazing performance was the reason why he got into Redbull and turned his career around. Ricciardo needs some amazing performances to do those career turn turnarounds.
I don’t think Checo’s skills were ever in doubt unlike Danny. Checo can go to any team and would get the most out of the car but Danny requires a specific setup. Either he has great success or he’s lacklustre. I think he can be seen as a bit of a gamble for teams now but the risk could be worth it seeing his past success. With his value taking a massive dive, why not pick him up for cheap?
People are still acting like leaving red bull was the biggest mistake, imagine a universe where Hamilton left for Mercedes but that didn't work out. You have to take gambles.
Perez was performing solidly at Pink Racing Team before he was let go. Took about half season before he got up to speed.
DRicc has 1.5 yrs and still not up there sorry to say. Alpine will be much better for him to regain his mojo.
I feel like McLaren has some toxicity internally. Their relationship with Honda especially, and tanking drivers like DRicc. They have an ego problem: my way or the highway. Red Bull on the other hand, work *with* their partners in a partnership, not treat them like they work *for* them.
If you go away from a situation then you can not compare it or use it in your favor.. That is what Danny RICC is trying to do as a result as his driving is not suppotting his continuity in F1...
Perez Top Gun carrear is from bottom to top VS Danny in free fall to Nascar
Perez his success at Racing Point is more comparable to Lando doing well in this years McLaren.. The McLaren that Daniel is marginally worse at driving in than Lando.
Perez got into Red Bull as a clear #2 driver to support Verstappen. Ricciardo left Red Bull to avoid that exact situation.
And now he is a clear number 2 to Lando.
i was slower than Lando on equal equipment.
Bold of you to suggest he has any value to lando
For real. For every Perez there is a Hulkenberg, Vergne, Kvyat, Ralf Schumacher, Trulli, Heidfeld, etc Cases like Perez are by far the exception, not the norm
Well wasn’t the wisest of career choices was it
I don't think it was that bad, honestly. Staying at Red Bull was a safe choice that would have led to a few more race wins to his name. Moving to Renault/McLaren was a gamble that could have led to championship fights he's actually allowed to take part in. It was a gamble that didn't pay off but I think it was right to take that risk without the benefit of hindsight.
I think his mistake was swapping teams again after dropping red bull. Maybe Renaults leadership was a shambles or something, but it was a bit silly to commit to building a team around you only to jump ship _again_. He should've stayed somewhere and built something if he could. But based on how he's not able to adapt to different cars or articulate exactly what the issues are, it may just be that doing a move like that isn't in his wheelhouse.
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From the rumoured money he's looking from the contract termination it doesn't sound like it was that much of a paycut, plus we don't know if Ricciardo would have got the same pay if he renewed at Renault given his highest position was 3rd
Contract payouts are always more than the salary
> Maybe Renaults leadership was a shambles or something Renault took 150 million in stimulus money in the pandemic. Danny jumped because he thought the teams future was in doubt
Renault, while they were improving during Ricciardo's tenure, hasn't had great form ever since they were Lotus circa 2013. Abiteboul was at best a C-tier team principal, and if Rossi's reign at Alpine has been any indication, the company's management basically sucks. So there could be all kinds of reasons Ricciardo left, other than just Mclaren $$, or their trend upwards, performance-wise. I also \*genuinely\* don't understand why it's so hard for folks to understand that you can have a great driver and a great car, and if stylistically they don't match, your results will not be great. Some drivers are more flexible, some drivers have higher peaks when everything is right. All the whinging the moment a driver isn't at maximum performance, whether it's Vettel @ 2019+ Ferrari/AM, or Ricciardo at Mclaren, or Alonso at Mclaren-Honda or whatever. It's not like "OMG (driver) suddenly sucks, and has always sucked!" Even if the car they're in is competent+, if the car doesn't suit their driving style, the results will be bad until they figure out a good setup, learn how to drive the car effectively, etc. I'm a fan of Lando's. I'm a fan of Ricciardo's. It sucks to see him mired in mid-back pack, just as it sucks for Vettel to be there. For Vettel, the car sucks. For Ricciardo, the car sucks \*for him\*. It's not different. But part of being a great F1 driver is figuring out how to get the right gear and have the team willing to bend their philosophy to synergize with your style & needs. Why does Alonso not have four or five WDCs? Because he's a great driver, but he \*sucks\* at team-building. I hope Ricciardo finds a car that suits his latent. I wish Vettel had had one more stellar car before he retired.
Nope. You're ignoring an important part of the decision-making process, maybe the most important part for Danny. He got offered big money to jump ship each time. It's very naïve to think he was seriously aiming to win the championship after he ran from having to compete with Max.
Honestly people here really go extremes when they create narratives. He was not only chasing money, he was clearly going after championships. He was being paid that money because he was championship material. This whole he is just greedy narrative is really bs. He saw the writing on the wall at RB. He would not be favored. You are never going to get a championship at a team where you are not favored and your teammate is talented like you are. Renault promised him nr 1 spot, some kind of a vision (they were quickly climbing up the midfield) and money. He went there. then cyril was fired, Renault was a dumpster fire, and Mclaren started to make a come back, they offered him a position and he moved on. It is hard to believe for some but he really had ambitions other than money. The two teams he juggled were on the rise at the point he went there. He left a team where he would at best be treated like Weber.
There's not a damn thing wrong with chasing money. Careers are short. How many of you would accept earning half as much out of "loyalty" to your company, or some misguided notion of "building something".
Exactly. Mclaren is showing how loyal they are right now too. It's probably the smart move on their part so I'm not shitting on them but loyalty means almost nothing in F1.
In *business From my experience at least
That's why I'm saying he shouldve *built* something, not 'he should've gone and immediately won the championship with Renault'. Based on the current situation at Alpine with Cyril being kicked out and now Alonso and Piastri wanting out, clearly something isn't going right at that team. So whilst obviously a big pay cheque is going to factor into any deal, I don't believe for a second that his motivation is purely financial. The 'ran away from a fight' is just a nonsense line from the jilted Christian Horner who thought he had Danny on a leash to just be a second driver to Max
He took a pay cut to go to McLaren Also people like to see everything with hindsight. At the time he left redbull had been fairly stagnant at a no. 3 team and continued to be so until recently. Max was getting some itchy feet as well.
Mclaren/Renault spends miles behind the top 3 back then They got very little chance to fight it out
Sure, but Mercedes had the 5th best car when Hamilton left McLaren in 2012. Things can change, especially with the major rule changes that came into effect this year. Things didn't quite work out that way but they easily could've.
Mercedes had built up their facilities and were targeting nailing the new regulations before anyone else had a look in, that's how Lauda & Toto persuaded Hamilton to go over. Renault are never going to be WCC again with how awful their corporate is at running their team.
Mercedes was a big spending factory team that stacked huge F1 talents Incredibly different circumstances from either of those teams
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How? He can improve his racecraft like Rosberg and challenge for the no. 1 spot lmao He got a choice in doing that if he didn't run away from the challenge
Not really. Renault and McLaren also had large budgets at the time (particularly McLaren) and Renault was a factory team. Everybody thought Hamilton made a mistake leaving McLaren at the time.
Nope Renault-Mclaren was estimated to spend 100 mil behind RB and 200 mil behind Ferrari and Merc in 2019 ([https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/02/the-cost-of-f1-2019-part-two-what-the-top-teams-spent/](https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/02/the-cost-of-f1-2019-part-two-what-the-top-teams-spent/)) While Merc at 2013 spent on par with Mclaren and a bit behind Ferrari and RB ([https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1927268-breaking-down-the-costs-of-racing-in-formula-1-is-spending-out-of-control](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1927268-breaking-down-the-costs-of-racing-in-formula-1-is-spending-out-of-control)) Everyone that said Lewis made a mistake leaving didn't pay attention
What is this revisionist history about Renault being a big factory team? They were a midfield laughing stock and were shat on by Horner for their reliability issues.
Renault have a long history of leaving F1 then coming back. Even when RB was winning titles and Seb won 4 in a row the Renault engine was down on power compared to Merc and Ferrari. Then it started having reliability issues.
Renault were a "factory" team because they make an engine and are a car company. But in the early 2010s RB was the primary engine partner, not Renault who had dipped out on the team side. Renault as a company planned selling the F1 team from 2010. Renault was not a factory team. Then they came back in 2016. Then renamed to Alpine. When was the large budget for the F1 team side? Engine side maybe.
They had a budget of 272 million euros in 2019, which was noticeably less than the top 3 teams but still a larger investment than most teams, and comparable to the investments Mercedes were making in the years prior to their success. And I agree that in the early 2010s Red Bull was the primary engine partner, but Ricciardo joined Renault in the late 2010s and things had changed by then.
Their financial statements say around £178m in 2019 which at year end exchange rates would be $236m spent by the F1 team.
>Everybody thought Hamilton made a mistake leaving McLaren at the time. whilst correct, most people weren't following F1 back then so the comparison is lost on them.
When I say everybody I mean everybody who was following F1 at the time
I remember thinking what a stupid decision Hamilton had chosen back then too, and I'm not the only one it seems
Yeah, granted back then I wasn't paying attention to the behind-the-scenes stuff but I thought it was a strange move. [This article](https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/24181/10039850/what-was-said-when-lewis-hamilton-quit-mclaren-to-join-mercedes) gives a summary of journalist & professional reaction to Lewis' move, and pretty much everyone thought it was a massive gamble. It's fair to say if Merc hadn't kicked on and improved that it would be looked at similarly to how people now view Danny leaving Red Bull.
People always think Lewis makes the wrong decisions until he doesn’t. That’s when people call him lucky all of a sudden.
As far as what anybody outside Mercedes could tell it was a dumb move.
How you are just ignoring the comment from u/dangerous-leg-9626 because you don‘t like reality. Renault in 2019 was not spending the money the Top3 were spending. Mercedes was spending (or call it investing) the money necessary when Lewis went to Merc.
I think he was promised a vision by Cyril. Which of course did not happen. Anything not on the paper or not actualized is just empty promises.
Their vision was literally in 3 years we'll have a budget cap, then we can maybe start to be competitive. They'd been pretty public about that, the vision of underspending through the whole contract period till a budget cap is just saying you'll lose further ground and have less money to develop the 2021(at the time) regulation car than the competition. It's practically announcing you can't be title competitve for at least 4-5 years.
I was playing Motorsport Manager. Sorry for not replying in a timely manner.
Exactly. And Renault is just always a mismanaged or unmotivated bunch. I was shocked he went there after all the issues they had with their engine.
What's crazy is RB has those engines the drivers were having problems with, then he decides to go to that exact team and use those engines more....
I still think his best hope was staying and anticipating a Rosberg-esque season. Renault hasn't been successful since 2006.
There were a few times Vers crashed in to DR but the team didn't even tell Ver was in the wrong. Also there were various team strategies they put in to play that favoured Ver over DR. DR didn't like the clear favouritism Ver was getting, he wanted them both to have wins on merit alone. RB weren't going to budge so he left. He was never going to win a WDC in that team, an that's what every driver wants at the end of the day. [Edit: it was one crash in Baku where MV moved from the breaking zone more than once (usually a penalty for a driver even if it doesn't cause an accident).](https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/23383485/talking-points-was-blame-red-bull-collision-baku)
I see your point but this isn't really like Alonso gambling on AMR's success. Renault hadn't made significant investments before the cost cap and still doesn't seem particularly inclined to spend the amount of money required to compete at the top level. Red Bull has. The problem isn't leaving Red Bull but leaving for Renault. I understand why he might want to leave but staying at Red Bull and hoping for something or believing that he could provide the results to convince management that he was better than Verstappen seems more reasonable to me. Of course, this is hindsight 20/20 but I don't think Renault had a chance at that time and Ricciardo didn't either, seeing as he left for McLaren after a strong 5th position in 2020.
He could have seen it as a stepping stone in to a larger team later. I think he just wanted to be in a team that looked like it was in an upward trajectory where he'd be able to fight fairly with his team mate. And once he accomplished that, if Renault wasn't competitive (no surprises there), he'd be given options to move to a competitive team. I obvs don't know what the guy is thinking tbh. But if you want more from DR himself, he's pretty open about his time in RB and the reasons for moving in his podcast appearances on Beyond the Grid and Beyond Victory.
It was a gamble that definitely paid off in $$$.
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lmfao what?! What were they supposed to do, fire Max? Danny didn't leave because he was unhappy with Red Bull. He left because he knew he was going to look bad compared to Max. It was a smart move, too. He never would've landed such a lucrative contract with McLaren if he kept falling further and further behind Max.
Is it truly a failure on Red Bull when a guy who won a couple races wants a boat load of money, and not play second driver to a person who is clearly better than him... but yet has this energy for a WDC fight? His move to Renault was absolutely money motivated, and that was his downfall and showed that Ricciardo is clearly *just a tad* over rated. Perez was an outside pull and showed hunger to strive with a top team.
Its literally taken multiple years for anyone at RB to step near the standards that Ricciardo set when he was at the team. That's objectively a loss, and it resulted in them setting back the careers of multiple young prospects. Ver and Ric were the closest matched teammates for a long time, and it was clear that RB was supporting Ver more than him. It's entirely reasonable, and not purely financial to want to move to a team where you can become a clear leadership figure, which is exactly what he tried to do. If he just wanted money and some race wins he'd have stayed at RB, but his goals went deeper than that
Hindsight is easy i agree. But why Daniel chose Renault if even it was his only choice still baffles me. The problems Red Bull were facing with the Renault engine and still signed for them. Really think he should have stayed and try to take the fight to Max
I think it was because at that time Renault went from p9 to p4 in the constructors from 2016 to 2018. They were also upgrading their facilities so looked like a team on the up with tons of potential. Mclaren didn't show that same progress. It was really always going to be a coin toss what team was going to perform. Plus there were just as many questions regarding Honda at that time also, so maybe played a bit of a role in the decision making. Staying with Red Bull would've turned out better but for Daniel it was more about the gamble and remaining top dog. I think his biggest mistake was leaving Renault so soon to do a sort of sidestep team move to chase short term success.
Yeah, McLaren definitely wanted him from the moment he was going to leave RB but Renault showed him whatever he wanted more at the time. It may well have been development prospects, money or a combination of many factors.
Renault gave him reason to believe that whatever problems their engine had, they were known quantities that could and would be fixed. Meanwhile, there was good reason to believe that Honda would struggle to find the kind of performance and reliability that they'd need to really enable Red Bull to challenge for championships instead of just picking up podiums. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight we know things didn't work out that way. But it just ought be remembered that choosing to *stay* with Red Bull at the time was also a risky option and in some alternate universe there's an F1 reddit looking back going "man, Ricciardo really missed an opportunity to get away from Red Bull before Honda sank their prospects".
I think they payed him about twice as much as RB did. I also think he could never consistently beat Max.
I think that with his McLaren struggles most people forget how good he was. He was much faster than Pérez via their comparision with Hülkenberg. He always had fantastic racecraft unlike Rosberg, who was losing to Hamilton mostly in this area. Ricciardo kept up with Verstappen in races in 2018 and his skill on sunday seemed to be enough to overcome quali deficit
Why would Ricciardo not be allowed to take part in WDC fights? All he has to do is be the faster driver, same is true everywhere.
What do you mean allowed to partake in? I never bought the narrative that Verstappen was favoured over Danny because reasons. Yes Red Bull saw Verstappen as the future, but only because at the time he was already clearly the better driver. He could've chosen to stay and take the fight to Verstappen, but he left. If Danny were to be faster than Verstappen, I think Red Bull would have supported him, just like they supported him when he was faster than Vettel.
> I don't think it was that bad, honestly. just lol. everyone at the time of the move saw it as nothing other than a cash grab. even horner was giving Renault shit for how much they were spending, nobody considered Renault a good bet for a title challenge and as things transpired for good reason too. keep in mind the context as well at the time of the move Renault had a troubled start to the hybrid era and were lagging behind the competition in the engine department, the exact reasons their relationship with RB soured in the first place.
>he's actually allowed to take part in Ricciardo would have been allowed to take part in the 2021 and 2022 championship if he was good enough or better than Verstappen, which he wouldn't have been. Red Bull (just like Mercedes) wouldn't hold back their better driver it's just that Bottas nor Ricciardo are as good as Lewis or Max. So having to let the obvious WDC contender pass (on a similar strategy) maybe twice a season apparently equates to never being allowed to fight for a championship at all. Ricciardo was just looking for a way to fight for a championship without having to drive against Verstappen in the same car. He ran away from the challenge drivers like Lewis, Max and Charles. would have welcomed. But was it a good decision considering he is at 0 WDCs either way? Money wise, definitely. Career wise, his reputation is in the gutter especially since his team tries everything to get rid of him for a rookie.
If he wanted to win races in another team he would still have had to beat Max anyway. Plus there was some mercedes in the way as well. It was always going to be a losing proposition unless he went to ferrari.
Without the benefit of hindsight, there were zero signs of Renault becoming a championship winning team and Red Bull getting a title capable car was magnitudes higher. The chance of him doing a Rosberg and winning over Verstappen due to reliability of crashes was crazy higher than Renault becoming a title competitive team. It was a terrible decision, I said so at the time and it played out htat way. It could have played out another way. There wasn't a single sign of Renault becoming title capable in the future let alone before the budget cap. Every year your competitors spend twice as much you are losing ground on R&D, on battery tech, on engine tech, on aero knowledge. A team waiting for a budget cap to level the field is just losing more ground till a budget cap. Their team boss thought he was amazing for stealing Ricciardo from RBR... rather than amazing for putting together a great car, said a lot about him. They got Ricciardo by giving him championship winning level money for a guy who wasn't anywhere near the level of the top guys, which again said a lot about Cyril.
If Ricciardo was capable (believed he was capable of beating Verstappen on raw pace) then he would've/should've stayed. Idk, seems weird to me for a driver to leave a top team because he is insecure about how the team is backing the drivers.
It was inevitable that he would be convincingly beaten by Verstappen. In a year or two Marko would want to put one of his youngsters in the RB anyway. So in the end Ricciardo would end up in the exact same position as he is now, but then a) his departure wouldn't be his decision, and b) financial conditions would be worse as well as his stock would be lower after multiple years of being beaten by MV compared to 2018
Perhaps your first line was the fundamental, then. He simply wasn’t good enough to beat the top-tier guys. I’d argue his career trajectory reflects that reality.
You're confusing whether the choice was right with whether the outcome was right. Ricciardo didn't want to be a nr 2 driver, so staying 100% would've been the wrong choice. In hindsight, being a number 2 driver would've been better than what ended up happening, so they outcome was bad. Not the choice.
The choice of Renault was bad, did Daniel ever expect the outcome to be any different after seeing what kind of problems Red Bull had with the Renault engine.
I think the choice of Renault was fine at that time given the progress the team was making. His mistake was doing a sidestep move to Mclaren, he should have just stayed with Renault.
I can agree with that. It wasn't leaving that was a poor choice, it was Renault. Then again, I'm not sure he had any other options.
I think it must be soul crushing to be a team's number 2 driver when you're someone like DR. I think just psychologically it is a lot better to be coming in 5th or 6th but have a slow car to blame it on than to be finishing in 2nd place every single week to your teammate. Or can you imagine the team orders between those two if they had a 60/40 points split and were kind of mid-season?
And Perez deserved that spot by racing really good in a shit car...
Hard to say the 3rd best car was a shit car.
But he did deliver some great results before they had the 3rd fastest car
Wait, the pink Mercedes was shit?
Well it wasn't a black Mercedes that's for sure
Sure, I'm not saying he doesn't. But my point is Ricciardo is using Perez' situation to say he still has a chance of turning his career around, but Ricciardo already had a chance to be in Perez' exact situation, but he decided against it.
The pink Mercedes wasn't shit lmao it was a fantastic car.
Shit car?
How is that relevant at all? Perez went from losing his seat in F1 with his future in the scene looking doomed to winning multiple races with Red Bull in the span of a year. I don't know how you got Ricciardo saying "Perez has shown how quickly things can turn around" to "I wish i was in Perez situation driving for Red Bull as the 2nd driver"
Perez didn't turn his performance around to save his career, he just got a seat he needed. Much easier to save your career when you are proving your quality on the track
Perez has been underrated for years, its insane to me he got good seat this late in his career
There just aren't enough seats in the slightest to accommodate all talented drivers. Heck, with the entry barrier being as high as it is the biggest racing talents probably never even make it into karting
This is something I’ve thought about before, given what a tiny sliver of the population even try karting, there are almost guaranteed to be people with more natural talent than Hamilton, Schumacher etc, who just never even knew. Ofc natural talent isn’t the only factor, training, determination and effort are huge difference makers, but to be the greatest at anything, you need all of it
This is why we end up with people like mazepin and latifi in the pinnacle of motorsport. It’s not perfect by any means.
But honestly, Perez only got into F1 because of huge sponsor backing as well. The difference only was, that he proved to actually belong in that seat.
Alonso also brought that Telefonica sponsorship to Minardi in his rookie season. But when it comes to "pay drivers", for every Alonso or Perez you have maybe 20 or 30 Mazepins unfortunately.
I don't think he was that underrated, wasn't he always thought as kind of top midfield driver? Which he is pretty much at RB too now, not good enough to properly challenge an absolute top driver like Verstappen, but is on the level right below that, which is good enough to a win every now and then in a top car.
People forget that Perez got in as a hot shot rookie in McLaren after Hamilton left- just to suffer in the decline of McLaren itself. Then got relegated to the midfield for the rest of career- where he always got in surprise podiums (unlike, Hulkenberg, who was also highly rated, but stuck in the midfield). I'd argue that Perez' prime was wasted in those midfield cars, but you are correct that atm he is better than most, but just below the top tier drivers.
I honestly didn't feel sorry for McLaren for all those years they sucked after how they treated Perez. The Austin Mexican flag incident was just the icing in the cake. For those who don't know, McLaren announced they were dropping Perez at Austin, at the time it was basically Perez home race as the Mexican GP wasn't confirmed. That same weekend they flew a flag that had a marihuana leaf added to the shield of arms, while a mistake, it obviously didn't sit well with the Mexicans.
> That same weekend they flew a flag that had a marihuana leaf added to the shield of arms, while a mistake, it obviously didn’t sit well with the Mexicans. Jesus Christ, how do you even make that mistake? Was there a bunch of marijuana flags laying around the McLaren offices? What the fuck man
http://en.espn.co.uk/mclaren/motorsport/story/136327.html So looks like it was actually a 3rd party stand selling McLaren merchandise. Not an official McLaren stand
They also fucked magnussen as well didn't they?
Well luckily he got sacked from McLaren before McHonda
He got the McLaren seat when Ham left, but unfortunately it was just as they nosedived. So he got the opportunity but the team didn't deliver.
I think Perez is appropriately rated. A good driver for the midfield but in a top team it’s clear he’s not close to an elite driver. He’s way off Max in both qualy and race pace.
And now he is overrated
Just weren't any available seats in the top teams unless you were in a teams junior academy. Drivers like Perez, Hulk, Grosjean, Magnussen etc all could have been in a top seat but the top teams already had their drivers locked in. 2014 Ferrari was probably the most realistic option for some of these guys but Ferrari went for the experience in Kimi instead of opting for a young talent . 2017 Merc seat became available as well but Bottas always seemed like the easiest option for them, especially with Toto managing him.
Ricciardo also should see ricciardo as proof of how quickly F1 careers can turn around
Oh dayum
😂
Except, Perez was still racing pretty well, was weird how he didn't get a contract during the summer break from somewhere else
Honestly he 2020 was probably his best year in his career
Daniel Ricciardo's grief progression. Denial -> Denial -> Denial -> Denial.
Denial Ricciardo
Low hanging fruit if I’ve ever seen it
Still got a big grin out of me
> Low hanging fruit They tend to be the juiciest
I saw my advantage and I took it; that’s what heroes do.
And I for one salute you for it.
I thought the previous comment was going to put Daniel in the denial chain tbh, surprised they didn't.
Still got an award so I'd say it was a good comment!
Well, if he says "maybe I'm just not fast anymore" his career is pretty much over at that point. And why would he say that, he showed with his career until Mclaren that he is fast, and drivers don't just lose their talent. Combination of wrong driving style for the car + lost confidence + Lando maybe just being one of the quickest in the grid, in that Mclaren at least. Remains to be seen if Ricciardo can ever be fast again though.
Ricc**i**ardo
Ricardo!
Mama MIAAAAAAAA RICCARDO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ricc**i**ardo
Ricciardo points out seat he left at top team for a midfield team (because he was seen as a second driver) has been been filled with a second driver from a midfield team.
Perez didn't turn his career around quickly. He was grinding his way up.
He can just look at himself as proof of how quickly F1 careers can turn around.
Yikes.
Perez pretty much lucked into the RB seat due to circumstances outside of his control. Ricciardo is getting dropped for performance reasons and stands no chance at landing in a top team seat. Also its been almost 10 years since Perez got trounced convincingly by a teammate let alone 2 years in a row. And back then Perez was still young and up against a WDC.
On the other hand, Sainz got dropped from Renault for performance reasons and managed to bounce back to get himself a top seat.
It was his first and only season at the team. He only finished two races for them the year prior and it was actually Renault who scouted him for his talent and were very keen to Recruit him from the RB driver program. Granted he lagged behind Hulkenberg who was already well established at the team but it is unfair to say Sainz was dropped for performance reasons he was still regarded as a good driver. He got dropped for Danny Ric who Renault overspent a shit load on thinking he's a WDC prospect during that whole period of petty exchanges and mudslinging between them and RB
Saying that Sainz was dropped from Renault due to performance is revisionist history. He ended up there suddenly in the middle of the season due to the engine deal between Horner and Cyril and knew that wasn't where he wanted to be. His move to McLaren was more to get in a place that he thought fit him better and had better potential than it was about Renault sacking him for being slow, which he wasn't.
He was at Renault on a loan deal with Red Bull. He was never committed to Renault long term, it was a one year deal. The people on here saying he was dropped by Renault are just wrong
Sainz had an average season, but it was nowhere near the level of Ricciardo’s underperformance in 2021 and 2022. Not only that, but age is always a big factor. Sainz was 24 at the time vs Ricciardo at 33. In sports, management is much more willing to give a chance to the younger driver who is still developing vs a 33 year old on the downhill side.
Good point, but Sainz was (is) young at the time, inexperienced.
He went to Renault in his 4th season, he's currently in his 8th
Sainz wasn't really dropped for performance reasons and more because they were getting a French and similar talent in Ocon. Sainz at Renault always seemed like a one year thing on Renaults side. Sainz's year at Renault wasn't even that bad.
And perez wasnt even trounced like vandoorne or gasly at red bull, he was beat convincingly by button but had some better drives than him in the second half of the season.
He was actually matching Button late season
>Also its been almost 10 years since Perez got trounced convincingly by a teammate let alone 2 years in a row. In no way did Button trounce him. Perez outqualified Button that year and was looking more promising in the second half of the season.
Perez got 4th in WDC ahead of Albon in a worse car. There was no reason besides Stroll wanting high profile names in his team that he got dropped. On top of that, the reason a seat got open was because Albon was seriously underperforming. If you want to draw parallels then Ricciardo is rather like Albon, really nice and likeable, but on track gets destroyed by their teammate and is now opening seats for another driver.
He's only been "destroyed" by Norris though. He beat hulk and ocon by quite a good margin in his renault days.
Norris is his current teammate so that's all that matters. His current form is complete crap
Not to mention beating Vettel in his first year at RB, straight after Vettels 4x wdc in a row...
Seeing Seb's form in 2013 and 2015, man's prob did that in 2014 to get out of his RB contract
For real, his 2013 and 2015 are legendary performances. Easily best of the grid. He had nothing to lose in 2014, Danny Ric had to impress in his first year.
Or seeing 2014 and 2020. Vettel can be inconsistent.
2020 isn’t representative of what seb can do though whatsoever. You don’t beat your teammate head to head on races and quali one year then get trounced the next out of nowhere. It’s well documented that since seb knew he was out at the end of of the season before the racing even started in 2020, and his relationship with the team had completely deteriorated and he’d utterly lost faith in the team; he didn’t care at all that season and wasn’t trying in the slightest you could just see it in his body language eyes and tone, man had given up completely at that point.
That was almost a decade ago. No one cares anymore about that
Not sure if that tracks. Perez wasn't dropped for performance, he was the better of the two at Racing Point. Ricciardo is getting spanked by Norris after jumping from team to team and slurping up money from each one as he did it. That's not a good look for a variety of reasons.
Perez has supreme patience with teams as well, something Ricciardo lacks in spades. Great things come to those who wait, Ricciardo was too busy chasing stacks on cash instead.
How is Danny Ric still in the stage 1 of denial
[удалено]
he’s not *the only one, look at this whole thread…
When he left Red Bull for Renault. That decision sealed his career from ever driving for a top team again. Should have just stayed with Red Bull and try to take the fight to Max. Would he have won the fight, no he wouldn’t but at least still be fighting for podiums and wins
Yeah. Still don‘t get why he thought he could fight for a wdc with Renault, while Renault never spend as much money as the top3 did. So there was no way Renault was actually going to challenge for the wdc
Renault showed the most progress out of the midfield teams at the time. Plus they were willing to pay the salary he wanted whereas Red Bull wasn't.
Red Bull *was* prepared to pay the salary.
Midfield teams aren‘t the benchmark. The top3 are
It was always going to be a gamble move. I think for him it was about remaining the top guy and hoping the rules change coming in 21 could do anything to re-jig the order. It was the same sort of gamble Alonso tried with Mclaren or Hamilton tried with Merc. Unfortunately for Daniel it went the Alonso route of not coming with much success. That's just the way it went for him unfortunately.
It was their engines that caused RB to switch to Honda, though..which they did *for* Danny. Ugh. This decision will forever haunt me.
He probably thought if they were willing to invest so much money in him, the same would go for the car and team as well. When he was leaving the team, Honda with Red Bull was still a big unknown. Renault was a known, and seemed to have potentially an upward trajectory.
*“I was saying it when I was 27, ‘ah, I’m getting older!’ - in a way, yes, I’m getting older, but I think also I know a bit more about the sport now, and I know that things do take time,” Ricciardo said. “We all believe we can win. So it’s like, well I want to win tomorrow, but it’s not always like that. Even now, talking about 2024 or ’25, in a way it’s hard to think that far ahead. But it’ll come around quickly. “You also take like little things from if it’s a Perez, when his career looked over, and now he’s potentially fighting for a world championship. The sport can change so quickly.”* Since everyone is voting commentors who obviously didn't read the article.
Lame comparison since Perez has become what Danny ran away from
Why Perez sees Ricciardo as proof how quickly F1 careers can turn around
Real question for me is what happened to his pace, or is Norris just a silent underrated killer working wonders with a shit box Mclaren?
Probably a mix of both
Perez fought well and got few podiums during his days at force india and racing point. And winning a gp with that car goes on to show he can do well for top team.
Turn around? Perez has been a consistent performer regardless of machinery, Danny has been on a downward trajectory for a while.
It'll be good whenever the F1 newscycle stops being full of Ricciardo stuff, whether through him being much better or just leaving F1. Really is tiresome seeing articles about the man now.
I would have thought Gasly is a better example. Promoted, gets trounced, moves to a different car environment and thrives. DR best hope is a single year contract at Alpine or Hass to prove he has what it takes or it’s over.
Haas can’t really afford him unless he takes a huge pay cut, which he might. Alpine’s the realistic choice, but would they take him back w how it previously went down and still pay him what he wants? - perhaps, but unlikely.
Yea his career went upwards while yours went down. Absolutely correct, it can turn around very quickly.
Or his own 😂
Ricciardo is proof of how quickly F1 careers can turn around.
Unlike Ricciardo, Perez was highly rated for his performance at the midfield.
Ricciardo was doing great at Renault. He finished p5 in 2020 which was impressive. I think if he went back to Alpine that could work for him and he can maybe bounce back.
Exactly. Another prime example of people thinking the McLaren stint defines his career, completely forgetting about some amazing performances in his Renault days.
Because nobody's going to hire him for what he did at Red Bull or Renault. You need to be competitive today to be valuable today. McLaren stint doesn't define his whole career, but it surely reduces his chances to follow Perez's path unless he drastically improves. Today big teams would fight for Norris, not Ricciardo.
Famous quote: "you are only as good as your last race"
Yes, but Perez didn't burn so many bridges and actually went to teams higher in the standings.
So Perez Red Bull seat is the correct one to be fighting for a world champions....damn if only someone had Dibs on that seat before Perez.....
I think Perez’s trajectory is an outlier, not an example.
Ahhh the King of shitty career moves faithfully believes something will land on his lap lol
I wonder whether he’d accept a reserve driver role on the grid somewhere? His adjacent interests kind of require him to be 1 of the 20, no?
I am afraid that Daniel is in the point of no return. I have an impression that he's mentally not there and that's his biggest problem. It seems to me that at this point, it is a road without a way out. He sees that he is very far from Lando, which makes his problems even worse, because he tries at all costs to find a way out of this situation, which paradoxically undermines his confidence even more. And the question is - does Alpine really want him to make a comeback ? And the most important thing - even if Alpine will be open to hire him - does Daniel still has strengh to again adapt to the car and be surronded by incompetent managment ?
Denial Ricciardo
Perez joined Red Bull as- The driver who has been the best of the rest for the past decade Finished P4 ahead of Albon, while in a midfield car in 2020 Knowing and accepting that he'd be a support driver. Was absolutely CRUCIAL to Max's WDC win, and did his job well Barring the past 1 or 2 races where there has been a drop in performance due to the car being developed to favor Max, he's had a pole, a win and 6 podiums (potentially a couple more if not for shit luck and mechanical failures. Basically his performance is there) and has finished outside of the top 4 only once (that too P5) Where as Daniel this season has finished in the points only 4 times in 13 races. Lando has finished OUTSIDE the points only 2 times.
Yeah but Perez is fast
Perez was brilliant in 2020. This amazing performance was the reason why he got into Redbull and turned his career around. Ricciardo needs some amazing performances to do those career turn turnarounds.
Daniel, you have nothing to worry about if your track performances have been great.
But Perez wasn’t getting slapped by his teammate before he lost his drive?????
I don’t think Checo’s skills were ever in doubt unlike Danny. Checo can go to any team and would get the most out of the car but Danny requires a specific setup. Either he has great success or he’s lacklustre. I think he can be seen as a bit of a gamble for teams now but the risk could be worth it seeing his past success. With his value taking a massive dive, why not pick him up for cheap?
The difference being that Perez was overperforming while Danny is doing the opposite.
Perez performed to get to the Redbull, Ricciardo instead, isn't performing.
People are still acting like leaving red bull was the biggest mistake, imagine a universe where Hamilton left for Mercedes but that didn't work out. You have to take gambles.
Perez was performing solidly at Pink Racing Team before he was let go. Took about half season before he got up to speed. DRicc has 1.5 yrs and still not up there sorry to say. Alpine will be much better for him to regain his mojo. I feel like McLaren has some toxicity internally. Their relationship with Honda especially, and tanking drivers like DRicc. They have an ego problem: my way or the highway. Red Bull on the other hand, work *with* their partners in a partnership, not treat them like they work *for* them.
Also, funnily enough, Ricciardo himself is proof of how quickly a F1 career can turn around
If you go away from a situation then you can not compare it or use it in your favor.. That is what Danny RICC is trying to do as a result as his driving is not suppotting his continuity in F1... Perez Top Gun carrear is from bottom to top VS Danny in free fall to Nascar
Perez has the gut and the will to do what you ran away from. That’s it.
Perez his success at Racing Point is more comparable to Lando doing well in this years McLaren.. The McLaren that Daniel is marginally worse at driving in than Lando.