‘At the time...’ - Daniel Ricciardo ponders career regrets with F1 future uncertain

Daniel Ricciardo has been open in admitting his decision to leave Red Bull wasn’t necessarily “the greatest decision” of his F1 career.

Ricciardo shocked the F1 world by announcing his departure from Red Bull in the middle of 2018.

It came at a time where Ricciardo was in title contention following his second win of the year at the Monaco Grand Prix.

However, a controversial clash with teammate Max Verstappen in Azerbaijan led to tension within the team.

Verstappen had slowly grown into the ascendancy and generally had the edge over Ricciardo, even if the latter had started the season strongly.

Ricciardo made a big money switch to Renault, which ultimately didn’t yield significant success.

He went podium-less in 2019 before enjoying one of the best years of his career during the pandemic in 2020.

But before the delayed 2020 season, he opted to join McLaren for 2021 - arguably the bigger mistake given his troublesome time against Lando Norris.

Speaking to Sky Sports in a reflective interview after potentially his final race in F1 at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend, Nico Rosberg asked if he had any regrets.

Ricciardo replied: “I can certainly look back on it and say… At the time everything in my head made sense. Was it the best decision of my career?

“Of course you can argue it wasn’t. I am okay with that. It’s one of those ones. Also there’s no guarantee if I stayed I would have done amazing and won this and that.

“You never know. I am not going to stand here and say that was the greatest decision of my life but you live and you learn.

“It eventually brought me back into the family. I don’t want to look back and be kind of sad or bitter about anything.

“Everything I guess happens for a reason. It’s all good.”

Ricciardo will be be replaced by Liam Lawson at VCARB from the United States GP onwards.