Four years ago, Daniel Ricciardo decides to leave Red Bull Racing F1 team; Christian Horner now reveals the reason and can’t help taking a potshot at him to boot.
According to the Red Bull team boss, Daniel Ricciardo’s departure after the 2018 season had only one reason: Max Verstappen. Speaking to The Australian, the 48-year-old said that at the time (2018) Riciardo had realised that his then teammate was on the up. “And he didn’t want to play second fiddle.” says Horner.
Besides the duel with the Dutchman, Ricciardo had also had “doubts about the Honda engines”. However, since Red Bull was competitive with Honda after a relatively short time, he had displayed “incredibly bad timing”.
Daniel Ricciardo defends departure from Red Bull
Ricciardo himself, who landed at McLaren via Renault ahead of the 2021 season, seems to be fine with his decision, however. For in an interview with the Herald Sun, he revealed his goal: “Obviously I would love to win the title in a McLaren and then be able to say: I told you so!”
That the critics will continue to doubt him loudly until then is something he can accept, he said: “I knew what I was getting into when I left a big team. And at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.”
Later, he added again. He said he could understand if people doubted his decision, but “you have to expect that. It is now, though, and I don’t care.”
Horner takes a potshot at Ricciardo
Horner himself explained that they would have liked to continue working with the Australian in 2018. “We were sad when he decided to leave the team.” And even now he found warm words for his ex-driver. He was “a great driver” and “a great personality”.
But he still had a little potshot aimed at Ricciardo. Just like back then at Red Bull, Ricciardo once again has a fast younger team-mate in Lando Norris, who makes life difficult for him.
“And that is hard for him.” says Horner.
Why would anyone believe anything Horner says, he is a small vindictive man with a huge Hamilton shaped chip on his shoulder. Unlike Toto who is diplomatic and chooses his words wisely, Horner cannot stop talking and making everything about him, he hates the fact that Ricciardo left and is always trying to justify it. Ricciardo did leave because of Max but not for the reasons Horner states, Ricciardo has never walked away from a fight in his life but Red Bull suddenly became one sided and Max is the worst team mate who wouldn’t hesitate in taking you out team mate or not and then blaming you. He had enough and left and then wanted to stick it to Red Bull but his choices didn’t quite work out. I like Ricciardo and he seems to be finding his confidence again so good luck to him but he has a lot of competition from Norris who is also a great driver but at least he won’t drive into him when the chips are down.
Toto diplomatic ha ha ha he is about as blunt as a bag of wet mice
Another MB or Lewis hater who talks without engaging his brain such as it is. Go on then name an example of when Toto has spoken out without diplomacy I would love to hear it, Horner he isn’t. ‘Blunt as a bag of wet mice’ that’s a first and about as daft as metaphors go but keep it up you will get there one day 😂
Calling everyone a Lewis hater and throwing insults after, when the original post wasn’t even about him or Toto, is either a sign of a very low self esteem or senility.
For the examples you crave, just re-read Toto’s comments post the final race. You can see an enthrilling bedtime story about ’bad guys’, litigation threats etc. that resulted in MB board doing damage control, so that the brand wouldn’t be jeopardized.
That last comment really did give me a laugh and also a sign of desperation, I don’t need to make you look stupid as you do such a great job yourself. If you can remember 10 minutes ago (and you call me senile) you made a comment about Toto being blunt with a ridiculous metaphor, remember that! I responded by saying give me an example of which of course you can’t as you just write rubbish without thinking about it. You are a hater, be a man and own up to it or justify you original comment, I wont hold my breath.
I expect you think that post Abu Dhabi was an example which is just sad. Think for one moment what Horner’s response would have been had he have been in Toto’s shoes at Abu Dhabi given his over the top response at Silverstone. Any sane person would have reacted like Toto, I was incandescent as were many of my friends it was the most outrageous and ridiculous decision I’ve seen in 40 years of racing and totally shamed F1. You as a Max fan would have thought everything was fine in La La Supermax land. Subsequently, Toto gathered himself dropped the law suit and made amends which is what a diplomatic team manager would do. Horner would still be spitting fire to this day. Your example like your first paragraph smacks of desperation if that is the only example you can give.
Throwing his headset – was pretty petulant
Petulant is storming off the podium in Jeddah when you’ve been caught lying your arse off. Toto’s reaction was after the Crashstappen refused to hand the place back and began weaving left and right and speeding up and slowing down and with Masi not informing Lewis until later, Lewis had no idea what was going on. Lewis thinks Max is crazy and you are always wary of passing someone with Crashstappens record and he was right as when he did try after being informed by Masi, Max brake tested him! He then lied but was caught out by telemetry the idiot. I thought in view of all this Toto’s reaction was mild, I would have marched down to Red Bull and knocked the spoilt brat on his arse!
come on Steve, the only reason LH didn’t pass MV was a DRS line a little further up the straight. (look at this years race CL en MV breaking heavely so they wouldn’t pass that line first)
LH normally never hesitates to pass a slow-moving Verstappen.
Furthermore, I continue to find it special that in the normal world someone who hits another person from behind is always guilty, but in F1 it is the other way around. Break test or no break test.
But i understand that dangerous driving is also not allowed. It’s just a different view on the situation
Imagine the circumstances Dre, Lewis had no idea Max was instructed to hand the place back. So Max slows down and begins weaving, now as an ex driver I wouldn’t attempt to pass Max with his record for crashing and especially as a crash would be bad for Lewis and leave the final race with Max 12 points ahead so Lewis had to be cautious as Max had already tried to take him out before. Max has already shown he is prepared to go full Schumacher if he has to and by now Max isn’t only weaving he is slowing down and speeding up and basically saying FU to the stewards and generally playing silly bollocks like the petulant brat he is. Finally he stops weaving and then when Lewis tries to pass Max slams on the brakes causing a collision with the hope he has taken Lewis out and keep his points advantage. However, Lewis could continue with a smashed front wing and the rest you know. Afterwards Max denied slamming on his brakes but the telemetry told the whole story, weaving, speeding up slowing down and then an unnecessary appliance of his brake, he was busted. His response was to sulk and stamp his feet but the real issue was that his crime was dangerous driving, normally accompanied by a grid penalty at best or a disqualification at worst and he got a time penalty which was meaningless. You have to wonder that with Netflix pushing all the buttons and a final race with both drivers on equal points that would make great TV and so Max goes away unpunished, It stank but not as much as the final result in Abu Dhabi. So, Netflix and the FIA have turned the sport I loved for 40 years into WWE.
You forget. Toto is diplomatic. May I point out a diplomatic luncheon with a race official. Admittedly it wasn’t very successful, but still a good example of Toto’s diplomacy skills.
Maybe a better example of his diplomatic skills is getting said official fired from his post.
Still, that’s easy when you have your fingers in pretty much half the pies on the grid.
Diplomatic? More like a Putinesque F1 invasion
Oh come on Judge seriously, you don’t think Masi deserved to be fired!! If you broke your own rules twice, sank your companies reputation into the gutter and caused the vast majority of true racing fans to switch off, would you seriously expect to keep your job? Masi was always going to be toast anyway, what Toto really wanted from FIA was an admission of guilt and a full enquiry, he knew the decision was never going to be reversed but some accountability for the farce in Abu Dhabi would be something. However, what he got was no admission of guilt and Masi the scapegoat and a total whitewash of an enquiry, which just shows how truly messed up the FIA still are.
I watched that Netflix show about F1 and Horner and his kids were making wishes when blowing flowers. He said to his sin did you wish for max to win the championship. His son said no dad that’s your wish not mine. Yet it was not like the last race I believe the beginning of the season race 3 or 4. Seems that Horner has Max as favourite and any other team mate has no chance of winning. Probably why Ricardo left as he knew he would never be #1 or even have a chance of winning a title. As for Nandi been younger and better well am sure younger is true but most drivers are the same and if they all had the same cars that had the same aerodynamic, speed etc along with same idea of team principal. Then they would all be racing each other closely. But with formula 1 been what it is and no big change this season either. free all the first 6 cars are in front as usual and still drivers been lapped or nearly lapped. This would not happen if they all had straight line speed, cornering etc all the same.