16/04/2018
NEWS STORY
If nothing else, any team considering signing Daniel Ricciardo, who is out of contract at the end of the year, should have finally been convinced of the Australian's talent - and popularity - by his amazing win in China yesterday.
Said to be under close scrutiny from a number of teams, including Mercedes and Ferrari, the Australian has put talks with his current employers on hold as he awaits news of its engine plans for 2018 and beyond.
Yesterday's win came with Renault - as have all the Austrian team's wins - but there is growing speculation that the Milton Keynes-based outfit will join sister team Toro Rosso in switching to Honda. Indeed, asked at the weekend if Honda has engineers based in Faenza, Toro Rosso team boss, Franz Tost, admitted: "No, the Honda engineers are based... some of them are based in Milton Keynes, because Honda has there as well an R&D department."
As Ricciardo continues considering his options, Christian Horner believes he would be best suited staying put.
"I think Daniel's happy in the environment," the Briton told reporters in the wake of Ricciardo's Shanghai surprise. "If we can give him a car like we did today, why would he want to be anywhere else?"
"He had the energy store failure in Bahrain, he had a turbo failure here yesterday, losing him important track time," he admitted, both instances down to Renault.
"You get to a point where you think 'what next?'. But it's a great confidence booster for him, to get this result now in this point in the year. Everything is wide open."
Of course, some might say that while Mercedes and Ferrari can offer him winning, more reliable, equipment, albeit alongside a teammate demanding number one status, the Australian should remain where he is… ignoring the precocious young Dutch elephant in the room.
Then again, with an eye on Red Bull's history, most notably the experiences of countryman Mark Webber and rising star Sebastian Vettel, perhaps Daniel should consider the adage about those not learning from the past being doomed to repeat it.