What does Ricciardo’s McLaren sidestep mean for his F1 career?

No Formula 1 silly season drama would be complete without Daniel Ricciardo playing a big role.

When news broke of Sebastian Vettel's exit from Ferrari, Ricciardo was quickly touted as a potential replacement. He had been subject to interest from Ferrari in the past, and would bring some race winning, star quality to the team in place of the outgoing Vettel.

Ferrari quickly decided Ricciardo was not at the top of its list, instead opting to sign Carlos Sainz Jr from McLaren. It meant Ricciardo was frozen out of the 'big three' teams again for 2021.

But instead of sitting tight at Renault, Ricciardo moved quickly to jump across to McLaren, the deal being announced on Thursday morning.

It's a midfield sidestep that has big ramifications for Ricciardo's future, and may end up defining the remainder of his F1 career.

When Ricciardo walked out of Red Bull and signed his two-year deal with Renault starting in 2019, he had nothing to lose, to a certain degree. It was enough time to see how the Renault project was shaping up ahead of the regulation change in 2021, when it was targeting a return to winning races and, it hoped, a championship charge.

By only signing for 2019 and 2020, Ricciardo had the freedom to look at other options for '21 should he be unconvinced Renault would be the team that could let him add to his haul of seven grand prix wins. Although a return to Red Bull was impossible, surely if either Mercedes or Ferrari wanted to bring in a proven race winner for 2021, Ricciardo would be at the top of their lists.

And yet that wasn't the case. Ricciardo's stock may not have been severely damaged by his time with Renault, given the limitations of a midfield car, but it did not rise anywhere near enough to truly pique Ferrari's interest. With its chips firmly placed on Leclerc for the future, Ricciardo wasn't the perfect candidate he may have hoped to be. Sainz has become the ideal fit and was quickly snapped up.

PLUS: The apparent biggest loser in Vettel's Ferrari divorce

The driver shuffles come as good news for Ferrari's main rivals, Mercedes and Red Bull. While Sainz has certainly impressed with McLaren, his signing does not instil the same kind of fear in them that a Leclerc-Ricciardo pairing would have. They breathed a sigh of relief that he would not pose a threat to them in the near future.

Ricciardo and Norris have already shown the shenanigans they could get up to - their hairy moment discussing Lando's youth in Silverstone's press conference being the highlight

Ricciardo was left with no option but to accept he would have to remain in F1's midfield for the future. But he decided that future was not one to spend with Renault. It ends a rather expensive and fruitless exercise for the French marque, perhaps reasoning team boss Cyril Abiteboul's rather salty comment in announcing Ricciardo's exit.

"In our sport, and particularly within the current extraordinary situation, reciprocated confidence, unity and commitment are, more than ever, critical values for a works team," Abiteboul said. No "thank you Daniel". No "we're disappointed". Not even a mention of their outgoing driver.

What does joining McLaren mean for Ricciardo's future? Is it acceptance that he is never likely to win a world championship or add to his haul of race wins, instead content with fighting to be 'best of the rest' for the remainder of his time in F1?

Not necessarily.

The McLaren project has advanced rapidly since the doldrums of the final Honda season. Zak Brown has worked hard since taking over at Woking to build a new senior management team, making good hires in team principal Andreas Seidl and technical director James Key. The Mercedes engine deal for 2021 was a big coup, and will still go ahead despite the chassis carryover for next year. Plans are also in the works for a significant investment in facilities, including a new windtunnel and simulator, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to put everything on pause.

They are all foundations being laid to set McLaren up for the budget cap era of F1. Its days as a free-spending works team are now a distant memory, so instead of clamouring to reclaim those halcyon years, the team flipped the board.

Both Brown and Seidl have stressed it will take time for the budget cap to really even out the field in F1. The big teams still have the best facilities and the best people, and won't lose that in a hurry. As they adjust to the post-pandemic world and work to a reduced budget cap of $145 million from next year, the leading F1 teams may not see those advantages last quite so long.

It bodes well for McLaren - and for Ricciardo. He was known to have held some talks with McLaren in 2018 over a drive for the following year, but eventually opted to link up with Renault. Clearly there has been interest from Ricciardo on the long-term project being built at McLaren, a curiosity that surely only grew as a result of the team's impressive 2019 campaign.

Ricciardo must also account for the stage he is now at in his F1 career. He is turning 31 in July, making him the fifth-eldest driver on the grid. Although retirement is hardly just around the corner, he is surely closer to the end of his F1 career than the start.

Whereas Renault had the safety net of being a stop-gap before moving if needed for 2021, McLaren will not afford the same kind of opportunity to Ricciardo. He knows this must work if he wants to enjoy the kind of success so many tipped him for following his heroics in the early part of his Red Bull career.

Witnessing the evolution of Sainz in the McLaren environment in just a single year would surely give heart to Ricciardo over such a big career decision. We've seen in the past how important a tight-knit team can be, best evidenced by Mercedes' recent success, or Ferrari's early 2000s domination. While McLaren may be at a vastly different stage to either of those teams, it has a similar long-term goal - and more importantly, a similarly positive vibe coming off the back of last year.

The pairing of Ricciardo with Lando Norris also ticks a number of boxes for all involved. The duo already showed us last year in a couple of press conferences the shenanigans they could get up to - their hairy moment discussing Lando's youth at Silverstone being the highlight - making them a marketing dream for McLaren.

Whereas Renault had the safety net of being a stop-gap, McLaren will not afford Ricciardo the same opportunity. He knows this must work if he wants to enjoy the success so many tipped him for

Ricciardo has a fun and hungry team-mate to be pushed by, but without the kind of underlying threat the more political Verstappen or Esteban Ocon would have posed. Norris has an experienced hand to learn from. It's hard to see that partnership not working well for all involved.

We're unlikely to remember Ricciardo's time at Renault as being a failure for the Australian. He may have missed out on battling for more wins as the Red Bull-Honda partnership took off, but he is still one of the highest-rated drivers on the grid. He just simply isn't the right fit for any of the leading teams that he was two years ago.

And Renault wasn't the right fit for Ricciardo. The fact he moved so quickly to link up with McLaren speaks volumes about how things were going, regardless of any previous comments about their commitment to their long-term aims.

But with McLaren, Ricciardo may well have found a home where he can get the very best out of himself in the coming years. He may not be a regular race winner or even fight for championships, but looking at the direction McLaren is moving in, it is probably the best place to be outside the top three teams right now.