Daniel Ricciardo ‘not missing out’ on Red Bull success as he plots the long path to F1 championship success

“It’s a podium car capable of winning a few races and that’s what they’re doing again this year,” says Daniel Ricciardo, who is contemplating the right answer when asked if watching Max Verstappen guide his Red Bull – the same Red Bull he himself left behind for Renault last year – to multiple race wins this season has made tough viewing.

“For sure the car is looking pretty good and it’s definitely got better since the start of the season, but in saying that I still think it’s the car I had the last few years. I don’t think I’m missing out, so to speak.”

It hasn’t been easy for Ricciardo in his first Formula One season of his career away from the Red Bull family. The wide-smiling Australian was the example to follow on the Red Bull Junior Team, graduating first to F1 with Toro Rosso and then to the lead team before reaching the top step of the podium. His emergence spelt the end for Sebastian Vettel’s time with the team, but like cycles, Verstappen may well have ended his.

That was not the internal motivation for Ricciardo’s end-of-season switch to Renault last August though. The 30-year-old decided that in Red Bull, he was not going to achieve what his ultimate aim remains, to be crowned F1 world champion, and that the only way he was going to reach that goal was to move to a manufacturer-backed team and pray for a rule change akin to what triggered this current Mercedes-dominant hybrid era.

“I probably would’ve had some podiums and some champagne [at Red Bull], but it’s still not enough to have given me a world championship and really that’s what I’m trying to get,” Ricciardo tells The Independent. “Obviously it’s not happening right now with Renault but the plan is to build up and get it with them. I don’t feel like I’m missing out, I think Red Bull are coming on and they are doing really well now but to beat Mercedes in the current state is really tricky and I think Max will win another race or another two, but it’s tough to see him win a title.”

Strangely enough, Ricciardo is making these assessments while surrounded by – of all things – socks, with his colourful character matching the Stance attire around him that he has just launched in London. “When I first saw them I thought ‘wow they’re fun, they’re creative’ and a lot people who are affiliated with the brand are my kind of people, a lot of action sports stars, surfers, skaters, motorbike guys, and a lot of stuff that I grew up with in Perth was very much that. The way we dressed was very much that kind of style.”

It is this laid-back character that has attracted him so many fans within motorsport, and when combined with his breath-taking ability to overtake opponents from all angles – or “send one up the inside” as he so frequently describes it – that makes him a paddock favourite. No one would begrudge Ricciardo a world title, but the question is how does he get there?

There is no answer right now, not with Mercedes so dominant and boasting a driver line-up that displays comfortable familiarity after Valtteri Bottas was locked in on Thursday for another season next year. That announcement was promptly followed by Renault’s own and means that Ricciardo will find himself alongside a new teammate in 2020 in the form of Esteban Ocon, the talented young Frenchman looking to make up for lost time after a season out of the sport.

But even with the arrival of Ocon, Ricciardo knows Renault will need something else. “I think next year Mercedes are still going to be strong and for their real dominance to end it’s going to have to be a pretty big rule change, because in the current state they’re so on top of this engine and the chassis,” he admits.

“They won’t win every race but they’re still dominant enough to win most I think, so they’re still the team to beat currently and I think they will be until the end of 2020.”

So what stood out about Renault? “A few things. They are a works team and have all those resources. They’re a massive company and they can have everything if they want it. I think that upward trajectory that they were on stood out, in three years they’ve gone from ninth to sixth to fourth in the constructors’ championship, so they’re on the right trajectory and their factory was extending, growing what they’ve already got, which I think was important.

“All these things for me were good indicators, and I knew I needed change as well. I knew that at Red Bull there was a risk of is becoming a bit stale so I knew I needed to move on for me personally just to keep forward momentum and not any form of a plateau.”

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It has been a tough first season though. McLaren have managed to surpass Renault and, by Ricciardo’s admission, look to be at the front of the mid-field pack. They have also struggled for consistency, although that goes across the board for the second-tier teams that have bunched together this season to provide some thrilling action across the year.

But Ricciardo believes Renault are due their time to shine and hopes that comes in Belgium, where the season resumes after the summer break at Spa-Francorchamps.

“If I finish there it’s normally a good result,” he recalls, having taken one win and two podiums at Spa – along with three retirements to boot. “Turn One is always a tricky one, it’s a bit like Melbourne at the start. We’ve had a long lay-off and you get into it and everyone is so keen to get racing again that there’s always someone who is a bit too eager, so we’ll see how it plays out.

“But I’m pretty confident about going there, I like the track - I think every driver likes the track because it’s pretty amazing - but I think we’re overdue a good result so it’ll be nice to start the second half of the season on the front foot.”

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Perhaps more importantly, Ricciardo will arrive fresh. The summer break was exactly that for ‘the Honey Badger’ as he got away from the stresses of the sport to enjoy a rare holiday and recharge the batteries. With F1 announcing an ever-swelling 22-race calendar for next season – and the provision to extend to 24 in the coming years – driver welfare is going to come increasingly under the microscope, and Ricciardo already knows it.

“Could we all survive without a summer break? Yes. We would survive, but would it be healthy and good for all of us? No. So I think it’s definitely important that we have it especially now that we have 21 races or whatever,” he says.

“It’s a pretty crazy calendar and it’s a season-long calendar, it’s not just travelling around the States and in between cities, we’re travelling to different continents: Montreal, to Europe, to Abu Dhabi. We’re going everywhere so it is very tiring and the different timezones alone is hard enough to deal with.

“For sure we’re all in good shape and we can manage and get on with it, but it is draining. I think the physical [strain] comes from the timezones and lack of sleep a lot of the time and you don’t feel like you’re full of energy or your body might be stiff from sitting on a plane for 14 hours.”

But that isn’t enough to detract Ricciardo from the task at hand. He has his sights set on that elusive world championship, and he knows it’s a game of patience if he is to get it. He also knows that even if the big rule changes fall in Renault’s favour come 2021, the real hard work lies ahead. “The team has been improving, improving, improving. But now we need to make that next step to get inside the top three teams. That’s where all the real challenges are going come.”