Why F1's smiling fighter can take McLaren to the next level

It speaks volumes for the frequency and authenticity of Daniel Ricciardo's famous smile that Formula 1 has still seen plenty of it since 27 May 2018. That was the day he won the Monaco Grand Prix for Red Bull - his seventh F1 triumph. It was a race of redemption for the Australian, after he had painfully missed out on victory in the same race two years earlier. Leaving Monaco, he was within touching distance of the championship lead - third behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, with more than double the points total of team-mate Max Verstappen.

Come the end of the season, Ricciardo languished in sixth, bottom of 'Class A' by 77 points. Verstappen had won twice after Monaco, but Ricciardo had done no better than six fourths, his summer and season run-in dogged by nightmares.

Yet there was a strong undercurrent to the second half of that season: Ricciardo's decision to leave Red Bull and join Renault for 2019. That call was largely about striking out on his own from the team and organisation that had brought him through to F1 and all of those wins (and getting away from 'Verstappen's squad'?), with a hefty salary increase added in...

But the first season of Ricciardo's Renault relationship was not particularly happy. The team finished fifth in the constructors' championship - down from the fourth it had achieved the year before. The RS19 produced inconsistent downforce levels through long corners, as the team struggled to understand how to cope with the disrupted air passing down the car behind the front wheels.

Ricciardo's best finish in the first season of his lucrative two-year deal was fourth at the Italian GP, as Renault notched up another underwhelming campaign since rejoining F1 as a works entry in 2016 - it promised much but delivered little as it tried to take on the bigger squads while committing smaller budgets.

In total, the gap between Ricciardo's Monaco win and his third place in the 2020 Eifel GP spanned 29 months - 46 races without a podium. But the smile rarely dimmed, and the belief behind it absolutely did not.

"I never had any personal doubts from that point of view," says Ricciardo. "And I think even though last year we didn't really show the consistency, there were still moments when I at least reiterated to myself that I still 'have it', 'I still belong here'.

"Like the qualifying in Canada - that was still relatively early in the season - where I qualified on the second row [fourth]. And I still wasn't particularly obviously at home with the car. We were still trying to figure it out. But I was like, 'OK, if I can pull this out, then I've still got a bit in the tank.'

"I never lost that. And I think even this year before the podium [at the Nurburgring], when we started running top fours, top fives, it just felt like it always had. Nothing felt foreign, nothing felt different."

His third-place finish at the Nurburgring required a bit of luck, which isn't to denigrate his drive that day, but more to reinforce that F1's 'Class A' now comprises only the ever-dominant Mercedes duo and Verstappen, and something generally needs to go wrong to knock them from their regular podium perches.

"When I did make it to the podium in Nurburgring, that feeling - jumping out of the car and hugging the team and all that - it really felt like the first podium all over again" Daniel Ricciardo

But someone has to be best of the rest and, on that cold day in Germany, it was Ricciardo and Renault, once the safety car had ended Sergio Perez's hopes of catching up in his Racing Point. The smile was back on the podium, even if its wearer forgot his trademark 'shoey' celebration.

"When I did make it to the podium in Nurburgring, that feeling - jumping out of the car and hugging the team and all that - it really felt like the first podium all over again," he recalls. "That emotion was really fresh. It's not like I forgot how to do it, but in a way I forgot how high the emotion was. And that was really nice to feel again."

Renault had to come a long way to reach its first podium since the 2011 Malaysian GP, when the squad was owned by Genii Capital and called Renault in name only, for contractual reasons. 'Team Enstone' then spent the next two seasons enjoying a glorious run of underdog competitiveness as Lotus with Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean, before Raikkonen left as the turbo-hybrid era began.

With that came a major dip in form as the Renault engines the team still ran were underpowered compared to Mercedes' effort. Following the team's financial challenges, Renault returned in 2016 with a targeted podium return within three years, but the wait would go on and on.

Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul has offered his thoughts on how 2019 was tough because other squads had gained more compared to his own. Renault customer McLaren certainly enjoyed a strong resurgence last year, as it scored its best constructors' championship position since 2012 - 54 points ahead of Renault. This year the competition is even fiercer, with Racing Point's controversial RP20 boosting it well ahead of Renault and McLaren in the downforce stakes, even if the pink-liveried squad seemed to squander that benefit at many early opportunities.

Nevertheless, Racing Point now leads the three-way fight for third by five points over McLaren and 18 over Renault, while the team that vacated that critical place in the 2020 standings - Ferrari - is now only six behind Renault after the Italian team's fine finishes in Turkey.

Given how close and feisty things are in F1's midfield, it's little wonder that it was Renault that took the lead on challenging the legality of Racing Point's design, before withdrawing its protest once it was satisfied the FIA had moved to prevent a repeat situation in the future. This saga dominated the early races of the current campaign, which somewhat overshadowed the progress the team had been making.

Expectations regarding Renault's form after winter testing were rather murky, with its attentions turned towards the upcoming regulation changes, at the time scheduled to come into effect for 2021. The team had made a significant overhaul of its technical structure, with Nick Chester leaving as 2019 ended and Pat Fry taking his place in February as chassis technical director.

While that car will have to wait another season before seeing action, and under a different name following Renault's decision to rebrand its F1 squad as Alpine from next season, its current design also made a delayed debut. But it came with an immediate boost.

Renault is not alone in having found something beneficial during the spring coronavirus lockdowns - Mercedes used the extra time to address a major engine reliability problem. And like other squads, Renault used the time available once the 63-day factory shutdowns ended to enhance a development package that should have arrived once the first quarter of the expected 2020 season had been completed. And it worked well immediately - something that had been another key weakness for the squad to fix in previous seasons.

PLUS: How Ricciardo helped Renault rediscover its swagger

"Getting to Austria [in July]," says Ricciardo, "I remember FP1 - and Austria was a bad track for us last year - I was like, 'Wow, yeah, I feel I've got confidence right now with this and then it feels a bit easier.' [After] driving in F1 for a few years, you know what's gonna work. Traction really is king. You want entry stability and all of these things, but if you can get the power down and get to full throttle earlier, it's just such a big gain on exits, and it carries you all the way through to the next corner.

"I just felt like the rear of the car was happier, traction was better. And I was like, 'This is a nice little step we've just made.'"

Although Ricciardo retired from the season opener due to a radiator weld failure, Renault had unlocked something significant in the RS20's development potential, despite the design being largely carried over from the underwhelming RS19.

But the opening three rounds resulted in just a trio of eighth places, one for Esteban Ocon at the Red Bull Ring, the other two for Ricciardo, as Ocon retired with a repeat cooling problem in the Styrian GP, then finished 14th in Hungary. At Silverstone, Renault improved, with Ricciardo's fourth place in the British GP and Ocon coming home two places behind.

When F1 reconvened for its second 2020 race at the British venue, Renault made another breakthrough in setting up the RS20. At the time, Ricciardo called it hitting a particular "sweet spot". "I guess I probably can't say the exact thing we changed, which was like, 'Well, that was it,'" Ricciardo starts, cryptically, the famous smile flashing. "But, basically, it was just something a bit aerodynamically with the car.

"It felt like what we did there just gave me the confidence to push the car on the entry. It just felt like I got more rear grip, more rear downforce. And I was able just to start to carry some speed in and be a little bit less timid with the car.

"You see all the top cars, particularly the Merc, they can just really chuck a car on the entry and they really trust the rear is going to stick. And I felt like that was the first time I'd really had that. And it was quite a noticeable step."

"He's a smiley, engaging character, which is a pleasure to work with. Daniel walks in the room and suddenly the mood in the room picks up because his smile and his enthusiasm are infectious" Marcin Budkowski

Renault went into the 70th Anniversary GP with added hopes due to strong practice and qualifying pace, but came away disappointed with just two more points as Ricciardo spun on his fall to 14th from fifth, although Ocon rescued eighth with an impressive one-stop drive. Spain was Renault's lowest point, but then came Spa and Monza, where the team had scored its best results of 2019.

The similarities between the Belgian and (regular) Italian F1 venues are clear, thanks to the high-speed nature of Spa's first and second sectors (even if it also has the high-downforce, technical second sector to factor in). And this has been where Renault
has been most at home of late, on the low-downforce tracks.

At Spa, Ricciardo was on a charge, setting the race's fastest lap as he surged to within four seconds of an unlikely podium behind Verstappen in the closing stages, with Ocon finishing just one place behind. Renault's return to Monza was ultimately trumped by AlphaTauri's glory with Gasly (and McLaren was the midfield team to beat in normal conditions before the red flag anyway), but it still came away with handy points, Ricciardo again leading the line.

At Mugello, an entirely different type of venue, he finished an excellent fourth, overtaking Valtteri Bottas at the final restart and then just losing out in a battle against Alexander Albon's Red Bull after the Mercedes driver had recovered to second. Nevertheless, the result illustrated that the RS20 was not be typecast.

Renault's year-on-year progress was underlined again the next time out at Sochi, where Ricciardo deployed "uncomfortable" set-up changes, which led to his best result at the track. Then came the Nurburgring, that podium, and all the talk of Abiteboul needing to get a tattoo to satisfy a bet he had made with Ricciardo "after a few beers" at the 2019 British GP...

While the Portuguese and Turkish races did not bring the high-profile results Renault had been aiming for - Ricciardo has spoken of how the squad was disappointed to 'only' be fourth at Mugello, demonstrating how much it now expected - they sandwich a second third place of the year. This came at Imola, aided by Racing Point pitting Perez under the late safety car. But, again, Ricciardo put himself in the position to capitalise, and drove excellently on old tyres while those running behind him at the late-race restart were picked off by drivers on fresh rubber.

But something has been looming over Ricciardo's season. In five weeks' time he will no longer be a Renault employee, and in just over two he will drive his last race for the manufacturer. Ahead of the delayed 2020 season even starting, Ricciardo's signing for McLaren was essentially the last link in the chain of driver swaps triggered by Ferrari's decision to drop Sebastian Vettel and hire Carlos Sainz Jr.

The reaction from Renault, which knew well before COVID-19 was headline news that it had work to do to convince Ricciardo to stay, was initially, and somewhat understandably, icy. In the press release announcing Ricciardo's exit, Abiteboul said: "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." But given the success that has followed, things have thawed.

"Of course we will miss him, but we will also miss the character," says Renault's team executive director Marcin Budkowski. "He's a smiley, engaging character, which is a pleasure to work with. Daniel walks in the room and suddenly the mood in the room picks up because his smile and his enthusiasm are infectious."

That's certainly coming across to Autosport - Ricciardo is no less smiley and engaging when doing interviews over Teams.

"I feel really good - I do," he says of his current perspective. "Obviously, the decision was made before the start of the season. So that was already done, and I was able to put it behind me.

"I put that to 2021, and really just put it all into Renault. And I was trying to convince the team that I was going to give it everything I had, and [saying], 'I'm not thinking about McLaren yet, and I'm not worried about that side yet, I'm gonna do everything I can here.'

"But it's really the results that speak louder than words, so I really had to make a point to have a strong year, to show all this intent to deliver. And I have, and that's been really rewarding for me personally, but also to see the team show faith and excitement in me, even with the news, that's been really cool."

Ahead of the final three races of the season, the fight for third place is very finely poised thanks to Racing Point's resurgence in Turkey. But Ricciardo also has a personal goal, as he's now just four points behind Perez in fourth place in the drivers' standings, which he had held prior to the trip to Istanbul Park.

"I'm all in with Renault this year. I'm gonna do everything I can to keep them third in the constructors and obviously I want to hold on to fourth in the drivers" Daniel Ricciardo

Bahrain was a double-DNF disaster for Renault last year, where Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg also made contact - a flash point in an intra-team battle that ultimately did not ignite. So, it returns there this weekend facing something of a question mark, while it will need to improve on a non-scoring finish in Abu Dhabi to boost its standings chances at the last. In between, though, the Bahrain 'outer-loop' layout that will host the Sakhir GP should play to the team's strengths. One of these strengths is a committed Ricciardo, despite his imminent departure.

"I'm moving on, but I would much rather move on on this note, than a year of struggles and all that," he explains. "I don't want to leave and it be like, 'Oh well, Daniel came here for two years, well that was a waste, we got nothing out of it.' So, I feel like I've given something to the team.

"As far as constructors [points/places] and all that, I'm obviously all in with Renault this year. I'm gonna do everything I can to keep them third in the constructors and obviously I want to hold on to fourth in the drivers [we're speaking to Ricciardo on the media day before the Turkish GP]. So yeah, there's no fun and games and I think that has to be also respected from McLaren as well."

Although Ricciardo is a Renault driver for now, with 2021 so close - so desperately close for us all considering the horrors of 2020! - it feels right to end with a look to the future McLaren is getting one of F1's best drivers, one that topped Autosport's annual ratings in both 2014 and 2016. A fierce but friendly racer, who has enhanced his reputation by succeeding - in midfield terms at least - by securing silverware for a team that had long missed the podium. But it's also getting a driver in his prime, still one of F1's most exciting racers, and, of course, that smile.

But McLaren is a team largely on the same path as Renault - seeking a return to the promised land of wins and title glory. It will enjoy Mercedes power after so many years of engine misery, with plenty of chassis problems at the same time, and it will gain a driver who now possesses important skills to help in that quest. These are skills he has learned and honed at the team he will now leave - on good terms at least.

"I know a little bit about McLaren's plans for next year, for sure," Ricciardo concludes. "But I feel like there's not really much more I can do at the moment, as far as setting myself up there. And I've got a job to do here.

"I'm also taking something with me [into 2021]. I've learned a lot, how to build something in the last two years, which will carry me not only for next year, but for the next probably five years. Being able to be in different organisations gives you a chance to learn more and to grow - to be a sponge, really. And I still feel I'm young enough and certainly motivated enough to do that."