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Christian Horner opened up in a private phone call
Daniel Ricciardo contacted him to apologize
Ricciardo left Red Bull for pastures new in 2018
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Daniel Ricciardo has called Red Bull boss Christian Horner to apologize for leaving the team for pastures new, the team principle has revealed.
Ricciardo, 34, left the constructors in 2018, with tensions running high over the driver hierarchy due to apparent preferential treatment towards promising Max Verstappen.
The Australian then moved to Renault, where he enjoyed mixed success, before a difficult period at McLaren which saw his contract terminated a year earlier.
Ricciardo returned to Red Bull as a ‘reserve driver’ at the start of the year, before taking the seat vacated by Nyck de Vries at Red Bull-owned AlphaTauri for the remainder of the season.
He has been linked with a return to the constructors’ champions for 2024, with pressure mounting on Sergio Perez, in what would represent a full circle for Ricciardo.
Christian Horner revealed how Daniel Ricciardo apologized to him for leaving Red Bull
Ricciardo left the all-conquering team to be a big fish in a small pond in 2018
And Horner explained how an apologetic Ricciardo called him during the Covid pandemic to admit he was wrong to leave the team.
“I think he recognized he made a mistake. He didn’t have any good advice around him at the time he left us,” Horner said on Dax Shepard’s Eff Won podcast.
“After spending a few years away from the family, he suddenly realized that ‘Whoa, actually, what I had was really good.’
“Actually, it was during the pandemic, I remember he called me and he said, ‘Christian, I hate to tell you this, but you were absolutely right, and I apologize,’ and and so on.” Horner did not say when exactly the phone call took place.
Horner added that Ricciardo was poorly advised when he moved to Enstone.
But he is set to return to Red Bull after rekindling his relationship with Horner
“There was an element of (contempt) at the time, we thought, ‘You know what? Okay. Go suck the lemon for a little bit,’” Horner said. “He was very poorly advised at the start of his career. Everyone screws up at some point.
“We gave Max a contract at the start of that year in 2018 to secure his future. Daniel, I remember being upset at that moment. He suddenly felt, ‘Wait, I don’t want to play the supporting role here.”
“I could tell he was starting to think about being a bigger fish in a smaller pond.” He got a lot of noise in his ears saying it was the Max show. Money (from Renault) was also on the table.