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By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer
It hasn’t been an easy year in Renault, however Daniel Ricciardo nevertheless says this season has”emphasised his love” for Formula 1.
The Australian seven-time winner made Red Bull to combine Renault on a two-year contract for 2019 and 2020 worth more than $50m (#40.2m), and his team started the season with the ambition of closing to the top few teams.
Instead, Renault have slipped backward. But Ricciardo says that he”still feels great” about the choice, has no regrets, which he would love to continue with the group if they can show enough improvements next season.
“Do I need to stay? Yes, because ideally we do get this into the next level,” Ricciardo tells BBC Sport in an exclusive interview.
“It was my enormous intention to come here. My intention wasn’t to really have a layover someplace else. I need this to get the job done, although I know people might still think that. I feel like the hours I have put in this year also have shown I’ve got the drive to want to achieve that.”
After finishing fourth in the constructors’ championship Renault are with seven races left 2019, one spot behind McLaren, a client of Renault’s engines.
The regression – and the contrast with the advancement at McLaren – has resulted in internal stress and disappointment, but Ricciardo says he expected a difficult season.
“Surely not to be negative, but regardless of even if we were coming sixth every weekend, I understood there were still bigger targets and that we were still not going to be where we want to be,” he says.
“Yes, we’re sometimes further back than we expected and hoped, but I knew there could be more work to be done and a great deal of hours to put in. I feel as though I was ready for that.
“Although I feel like I’ve worked more hours and worked harder this year than in preceding decades, it’s been very fun since the environment is significantly different – new people, new relationships.
“If anything, it’s reiterated exactly what I want in the sport.”
There have been some dark moments on the way, though, and the nadir was a weekend in Austria at the end of June when Renault were uncompetitive.
“Austria, literally, I will tell you conversations going in my head during this race,” Ricciardo states. “I’m literally driving around – I do not wish to state not current – but my ideas were’I do not need to be here.’
“When I say that, I suggest:’I really don’t need to be in this place’ I was 14th or some thing and it was one of our worst evenings. But it wasn’t a head-down defeat, it was:’Get me back into the front – this isn’t where I must be. This isn’t where we ought to be.’
“So a really awful weekend emphasised my passion and love for the game and how much I wanted to get everyone back around the front, such as myself.”
There have been some weekends, also, notably Canada, in which a fourth was qualified by Ricciardo, splitting the Ferraris and forward of the two Red Bulls.
“Through some of these struggles, it’s been really quite optimistic for me this season, and it has actually driven me want it,” he says. “That’s been trendy.
“And on an true pure positive – Canada. We have had some lows but that high was for me like a pole position. There have already been some moments which have lasted”
The team were never constant frontrunners, however, Ricciardo took seven victories, and established a reputation as one of the most exciting drivers of the sport, as well as being possibly its most bizarre and funny character.
Most of his victories were outstanding, featuring drives throughout adventuresome overtaking manoeuvres that are last-minute and the field.
The transfer into Renault has done nothing to damage his reputation for a driver, although ricciardo has faded slightly from the limelight this year.
He has his team-mate, German Nico Hulkenberg, who has out-qualified Ricciardo just four times in 14 races. This functionality disparity will have left the choice to launch Hulkenberg and sign Frenchman Esteban Ocon for the following two years of Renault.
And while Ricciardo would prefer to be up, ” he says he’s currently enjoying the fight’s high degree.
“If anything, [qualifying] is more than last year,” he states. “The conflict a lot of time was only me Max [Verstappen], in which this year it is all of the midfield. So that getting the blood flow. I am enjoying the driving”
In terms of the operation of the car, Renault believe they know what has gone wrong.
Their performance at tracks like all, and the two races in Italy and Belgium, Canada’power circuits’, have shown the French manufacturer has finally made a fantastic step ahead with its engine after decades of underperformance. The issue is that the car.
Ricciardo says:”It appears when I speak into the team, the foundation of the car, the principles, the base leadership, has restricted us. So we developed it a little bit but it’s attained, I really don’t need to say its peak, but it ca be developed that more with this philosophy.
“Thus, as far as today considering this past year, it looks like they would like to modify the entire aerodynamic doctrine of the automobile. Instead of focusing on this section of the auto, state the middle element, and attempting to create as much downforce at the middle, it’s like, no, we need to focus on the front.
“It feels like it may be more challenging initially, but in the larger picture we’d be getting more downforce’things’, as we call it, from this.”
This sounds very similar to Renault have done what Ferrari have completed this year – pursued an aerodynamic philosophy that looks better initially, but that restricts overall downforce; in contrast to Mercedes, whose car was more difficult to get working initially, but is better in the end.
To get Ricciardo, then, a lot hangs on Renault getting that right. If they could make their new direction work, and just take a huge step ahead, Ricciardo may remain. They fear he’d leave, if they can’t.
That was emphasised by Renault Sport managing manager Cyril Abiteboul, once he stated recently that signing Ocon”wasn’t just about 2020, but in addition 2021 and what’s happening to his own team-mate”.
Can Ricciardo think Abiteboul supposes he might be searching for pastures new for 2021?
“I definitely haven’t made any decisions yet,” Ricciardo states. “I have not had this discussion with Cyril. He’s frustrated with this year although I really don’t wish to speak for him.
“I believe part of him feels – I really don’t need to say [he feels] he has down us, but we did expect to do better.
“When we chatted this past calendar year, there have been higher hopes for this season. We are convinced next year will be a whole great deal better, but he’s presuming probably:’If it does not go [better], why would Daniel want to stay?’ That’s probably where his head is at and that is probably where these comments come from.
“It’s him only being brutally honest with himself and wanting to do better and needing the group to do better – to basically keep me and some other assets”
The contracts of motorists that are top come up for renewal at the end of 2020. Together with Ricciardo, Sebastian Red Bull’s Max Verstappen Vettel in Ferrari, both Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, and are all on the market next year.
“So next year, what could I want to watch?” He asks. “Needless to improvements – not only from 1 position to another, but strong improvements that really we could realistically fight for a podium at some point next year. This would be very encouraging and inspiring for everyone.
“I know we are still a very long way off that but I believe it is actually reach. I really don’t think we are dreamers; we just have to clean up a few things. I look back in Canada – in case we can accommodate fourth at the race of this season, I believe anything’s possible with these men.”
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