Ricciardo wants to 'fulfil' Renault stint before leaving for F1 rivals McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo is keen to end his chapter with Renault on a high as he makes the move to McLaren for the 2021 F1 season.

The Australian has enjoyed an impressive second season with the French manufacturer, scoring two podiums leaving him sixth in the drivers' championship - four points behind Sergio Perez in fourth.

Ricciardo’s form in 2020 has propelled Renault into the fight for third in the constructors’ championship with it trailing Racing Point by just 18 points.

With just three rounds to go, the former Red Bull driver wants to bow out “in the best way possible.”

“As I experienced a couple years ago, moving on and leaving the team were your formed relationships and work closely with them, it is never easy. These decisions are not easy and moving on is not easy,” Ricciardo said.

“I’m a fairly, let’s say, I don’t know if affectionate is the word, but I’m an emotional person and that. So moving on does make it sometimes tricky for me.

“But I do feel that this year has certainly solidified a lot of what I wanted to get out of this chapter, and my career with Renault, and you know last year was certainly still a year of understanding within myself and also the team.

“This year we certainly turned a corner, and a lot of us in the team can openly say we’ve actually done even better than we anticipated. A couple podiums has been great, and as I say it is not done yet.

“I certainly want to close this book the best way possible. It is so close, and I keep thinking Racing Point and McLaren, but there is also Ferrari in the mix. So it is very close.

“I do want to get on top of those battles to leave feeling fulfilled. That’ll have a big impact on how I feel leaving. So leave it all in table and will move on with happiness.”

Ferrari’s strong points haul last time out in Turkey means it sits just 24 points behind Racing Point in the constructors’ championship and six behind Renault.

Ricciardo predicts the final three races will simply come down to who has the fastest car and best reliability, rather than who can make the most of the slippery track surfaces as was the case in Portugal and Turkey.

“It is so close between all of us, and now we have Ferrari coming into shape recently in coming a lot stronger and having some great pace,” Ricciardo added. "Racing Point were faster all year. They sometimes did not score as much as what they had in hand, but we’ve seen recently that they have been there. They been a bit faster than us. It is hard to draw conclusions from special weekends like Portimao or Turkey.

"I think it’ll be a bit back more to normal recently, and will see the proper car pace of all the teams. It is going to be as usual trying to extract the maximum out of the package, get good reliability, that is going to be important for both cars. And we will give our maximum to score and hopefully get that third place in the championship. That is our aim.”