Ricciardo has started to believe in himself too much

A significant promise from Red Bull

Ricciardo featured as a major talent between 2014 and 2018. His overtaking by braking very late became famous in Red Bull Racing's car and beating Sebastian Vettel on his debut for the team in 2014 boosted his market value enormously. Ricciardo won seven races for Red Bull, but the McLaren driver has been unable to show his tricks in recent years.

It seems that it has all gone a bit to Ricciardo's head. The Australian left Red Bull Racing (the third team on the grid) for Renault (read: a big bag of money). At Red Bull, he also sensed that he would not win the battle with Max Verstappen in the long run and so choosing the fourth team on the grid and also a factory team was not such a crazy thought.

At Renault, Cyril Abiteboul stuck his neck out for Ricciardo. After all, there had to be a big bag of money on the table, but then the team would finally have a real front-runner. From the corridors, however, more and more sounds emerged that people were not that keen on Ricciardo at all. Yes, he could race very hard, but input in the development of the car he would not have.

Two podiums in his second season for the team and the humiliation of both Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon showed that Ricciardo was indeed a fast driver. However, he was not fast enough. In 2019, Renault had finished behind McLaren and that team had wanted Ricciardo. When another spot became available there for 2021, Ricciardo did not hesitate for a second and signed a contract for the following year even before the 2020 season had started.

Ricciardo's mistake

And that is where Ricciardo ironically fell into the trap. After leaving Red Bull, he joined Renault thinking that he would just bend every team to his will. However, with Hulkenberg and Ocon, with all due respect to those drivers, he did not get world-class guys on his side. So that he beat them was not that surprising; he had managed to do the same before with Vettel and Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull.

After a year at Renault, Ricciardo will have thought 'you see, at Red Bull Verstappen was just pulled ahead. I can still race', but with that thought Ricciardo was wrong. Yes, he is a good racer, but with his limitations. Those limitations were already visible in duels with Verstappen and surface alongside a good driver like Lando Norris.

Ricciardo could have stayed with Renault/Alpine for years. As a factory driver, he could pocket good pennies there and still had the best chance of becoming champion in the long run. Now he chose McLaren, where he stepped into a team where a young, well-liked driver is starting to make his mark. Sound familiar? Of course, it does! Indeed, the situation with Norris is similar to the one Ricciardo fled at Red Bull.

A fallen greatness

That Ricciardo would not be a success at McLaren was not something many people thought beforehand, but it does show Ricciardo's weakness. When the focus in the team is on someone else (Verstappen/Norris), he does not manage to make a car that is not quite to his taste go fast over the tarmac.

It is therefore crazy that Ricciardo himself has an attitude that he only wants to race with a top team. Haas desperately wanted him, but the American racetrack was too little for Ricciardo. He wants to win races and believes he can. However, the question is in which top team would he be the leader? The answer to that is none.

Mercedes(George Russell), Ferrari(Charles Leclerc), Red Bull Racing (Max Verstappen) and McLaren (Lando Norris) all already have their man in for the future. Ricciardo was fine at Renault but chose to leave that team. There now, as a leading man, he could have pulled the cart and been ahead of McLaren in the championship.

However, Ricciardo thinks the top teams are lining up for him and hopes to force a seat in 2024 with a reserve role at Mercedes. Then you have a plate for your head. Even if Lewis Hamilton decides to retire, it would have to be very strange for a driver who failed at McLaren to get a chance at Mercedes. It's an upside-down world, but apparently, you start thinking like that when you get to enter the paddock on a horse.