How Daniel Ricciardo apologised to Red Bull boss Christian Horner after making shock decision to leave the all-conquering F1 team
- Christian Horner has opened a private telephone conversation
- Daniel Ricciardo contacted him to apologise
- Ricciardo left Red Bull for pastures new in 2018
Daniel Ricciardo called Red Bull boss Christian Horner to apologize for leaving the team for pastures new, the team principle has revealed.
Ricciardo, 34, left the constructors in 2018, with tensions in the driver hierarchy over apparent preferential treatment towards emerging Max Verstappen.
The Australian then moved to Renault, where he enjoyed mixed success, before suffering a difficult spell at McLaren, which saw his contract ripped up a year earlier.
Ricciardo returned to Red Bull at the beginning of this year as a ‘reserve driver’, before taking the seat vacated by Nyck de Vries at Red Bull-owned AlphaTauri for the rest of the season.
He has been linked with a return to Constructors’ Championship for 2024, with pressure mounting on Sergio Perez, which would mark a full-circle moment for Ricciardo.
Christian Horner has revealed how Daniel Ricciardo apologized for leaving Red Bull
Ricciardo left all-conquering team in 2018 to be a big fish in a small pond
And Horner has explained how a regretful Ricciardo called him during the Covid pandemic to admit he had been wrong to leave the team.
‘I think he realized he had made a mistake. He didn’t have any good advice around him at the time he left us,” Horner said on Dax Shepard’s Eff Won podcast.
“After spending a few years away from the family, he suddenly realized, ‘Wow, what I had was actually really good.’
“Actually, it was during the pandemic. I remember him calling me and saying, ‘Christian, I hate to say this to you, but you were absolutely right, and I apologize,’ and so on.” Horner did not specify when exactly the phone call took place.
Horner added that Ricciardo was poorly advised when he made the switch to Enstone.
But he is on the verge of a return to Red Bull after rekindling his relationship with Horner
“There was an element of resentment at the time, thinking, ‘You know what? Okay. Go suck the lemon,” Horner said. ‘He was very poorly advised in his earlier career. Everyone is confused at some point.
‘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: ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to be the support act here.’
‘I could tell he was starting to think of a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear that this is the Max show. There was also money (from Renault) on the table.’