Daniel Ricciardo feels his two-year stint with the Renault DP World F1 Team has been a success, even if he was unable to take the French team to the front of the grid.
The Australian scored two podium finishes during his second year with the team, finishing third in the Eifel and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as he scored one hundred and nineteen points to take fifth place in the Drivers’ Championship standings. This was more than double the points he took in 2019, and he scored his points with four fewer races on the calendar.
Ricciardo says the results were not a fluke, with the Australian believing the team deserved the results in Germany and Italy due to their hard work in improving and developing the R.S.20 both before and during the 2020 season.
“If I’m to generalise it, I would say it has been a success, but I guess there are levels of success,” Ricciardo is quoted as saying by GPFans.com. “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.”
Ricciardo says he is leaving a team that is a more confident outfit, and there is now a feeling within the Renault that they can perform at the highest level and at the sharp end of the grid.
“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,” said Ricciardo, who joins the McLaren F1 Team in 2021.
“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.”
