Daniel Ricciardo to 'answer calls' from Renault rivals, but wants to stay beyond 2020

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo to 'answer calls' from Renault rivals, but wants to stay beyond 2020

The Australian's contract runs out after this season

Martin Macdonald

Wednesday 26 February 2020 17:27 Updated: 17:39

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Daniel Ricciardo admits he would have no problem taking calls from other teams with regards to joining ahead of the 2021 Formula 1 season, but insists the ideal scenario would be for him to be successful with Renault.

After Max Verstappen’s emergence at Red Bull, Ricciardo arguably became the team’s secondary priority, and this led to him surprising the F1 community when he opted to leave them in favour of Renault, who lured him with a contract that would make him the third-highest paid driver on the grid.

In his maiden season with the French team, things didn’t go to plan, as reliability and performance issues hampered their aspirations of closing the gap to the top three, with McLaren finishing fourth instead.

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So far Ricciardo has remained coy on his future, even if he admits being in contact with other teams, but has confirmed his first choice would be staying put.

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"I will answer calls for sure, but most importantly I want this to work," he said at testing in Barcelona.

"I don't want it to feel like I've just come to Renault and just got away from Red Bull, and then I'm looking for the next best thing.

"I really want to make this happen and make it work.

"Obviously the step to that is getting more out of this year than we did last year and hopefully getting enough out of it, that the journey continues beyond my two-year contract. That's the ideal scenario.

"To talk about other what-ifs and future here and there, it's still too early.

"You don't want to rock the boat obviously as well, but we haven't even started this year.

"I can't think about it yet."

There were previously rumours circulating that Ferrari were potentially looking at Ricciardo as a replacement for Sebastian Vettel should the German not sign a new deal.