Renault success was no "fluke" - Daniel Ricciardo

Renault

Renault success was no "fluke" - Ricciardo

Ricciardo leaves Renault after two seasons with the team

Ewan Gale

Wednesday 30 December 2020 12:30

Departing Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo has insisted the success of the team in 2020 was not a "fluke" and was built on the strong foundations laid in 2019.

In his first year with Renault, Ricciardo finished inside the top-10 only eight times. However, this year proved more fruitful as the Australian scored two podium finishes and finished fifth in the drivers' standings.

Ricciardo, who decided to move away from Renault to McLaren in the pre-season driver shuffle with the French manufacturer announcing Fernando Alonso as his replacement, summarised his second year with the team had been a success.

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"If I’m to generalise it, I would say it has been a success but I guess there are levels of success," he said.

"Obviously, real success would be winning a title in the two years but definitely stepping on the podium a couple of times made it feel like a success.

“It’s not as though we fluked a couple of results. I really believe we were there and we persisted. There were so many fourth places and then we finally made it happen.

“But I think the turnaround as well, to see the step from last year to this year, shows that the work that was done last year, the building blocks, definitely came to fruition and we definitely got a lot of use out of that learning from 2019."

Prior to Ricciardo's first podium of the year, scored at the Eifel Grand Prix, the Enstone based team had last finished inside the top three in the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix with Romain Grosjean - the team running as Lotus.

For Renault, the wait had been considerably longer with Nick Heidfeld last bringing home silverware for a third-place finish in the 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix.

Renault will be rebranded as Alpine for 2021 and Ricciardo believes the team he is leaving behind is a lot more confident than the one he joined in 2019.

“Obviously, I'm not claiming it all but some feedback I was giving and trying to help out and everyone was trying to move forward but yeah, I see it as a success from that point of view," he added.

“I see a lot more confidence in the team as well, just in terms of personnel and there is that feeling now of ‘we can do it’.

"It felt like I walked into a bit more of a timid environment last year early on and it’s not a criticism, it’s just the team wasn’t used to it.

“They hadn’t been successful in quite a few years and everyone can obviously start to have some self-doubts."