Ricciardo wants to take Renault to the ‘next level’ in F1

Daniel Ricciardo has outlined his ambitions to help take his new team Renault to the “next level” in Formula 1.

The Australian called time on his Red Bull tenure to make the shock  switch to the French manufacturer, which claimed a fourth-place finish in the 2018 constructors’ championship to mark its best result since returning to F1 as a full works squad in 2016.

Renault has made its intentions to return to winning ways in the coming years clear and has steadily found improvements, with Ricciardo hoping to further bolster the team following his arrival ahead of the 2019 campaign.

“I want more from myself in terms of I’ll always want more, I expect more from my presence in the team,” Ricciardo replied when asked what his expectations were for 2019.

“Nico [Hulkenberg] is experienced and he’s been around and I want to expect myself to become part of that team very quickly.

“And have a presence in the team, and be another source of push and fire and motivation.

“I guess I’m just expecting to carry good work ethic and to bring the people around us to work on what they have.

“Obviously the driving I will always keep improving, but just try to figure out how to bring the team to the next level.

“Just be engaged in the whole process I guess and not get lazy.”

Team boss Cyril Abiteboul remains grounded about Renault’s aims to bridge the gap to F1’s leading trio of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, though he believes the capture of Ricciardo acts as an important next step in the process.

“We know that obviously the further you go the bigger the steps and the more demanding they will be,” Abiteboul said.

“We would like to see, for instance, bridging the gap closer to the top teams in qualifying, in races, not being lapped.

“In terms of points scoring, this is the type of target that we will announce at the start of next season but you need to expect from us that we keep on progressing and completing the construction of the team.

“We expect Daniel to play a key role in that, just like he played a key role in Red Bull’s drive, in our opinion, on track but also off-track because we also feel that we need someone to embody that charge.

“Nico’s doing extremely well as a driver so I also look forward to that line-up to really properly represent the efforts and the ambitions of Renault in that new cycle.”