Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season.

Helmut Marko is “certain” that Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull in part due to Max Verstappen, claiming Renault did not offer a clear financial gain.

Having been a Red Bull driver since 2014 – graduating to the main team after two seasons with junior squad Toro Rosso – Ricciardo made the shock decision to depart Milton Keynes and head to Renault for 2019, following a tense final season alongside Red Bull’s rising star Verstappen.

Max Verstappen factor to Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull exit?

Ricciardo was certainly paid handsomely for his choice to switch allegiances to Renault, with a salary reportedly in the region of $27million [£20.2m], though that was not far away from what Red Bull had offered Ricciardo in the deal which they had put on the table, according to Marko.

“He had certain reservations about the Honda engine and apparently he listened more to the sweet talk of Renault and [team boss] Cyril Abiteboul,” Marko said of Ricciardo to Motorsport.com.

“Financially, there wasn’t much difference between what Renault offered him and what we offered.

“I also told him: ‘Shoeys will be hard for you’. I don’t think we’ve seen Renault on the podium a lot.”

Ricciardo had burst onto the scene at Red Bull by getting the better of their reigning four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel, but with Verstappen arriving in 2016 and growing “stronger and stronger” as Ricciardo’s big decision loomed, Marko believes this influenced Ricciardo’s choice to head for the exit.

“He came to us, beating Vettel with three-to-zero victories in 2014 and after that, Daniil Kvyat was faster than him at times, but over the season he also had him under control,” said Marko.

“And then Max came and he got stronger and stronger, so that was certainly one of the reasons for his decision to choose Renault over us.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner previously spoke at length on the Ricciardo contract situation during an appearance on the Eff Won with DRS podcast, where he revealed that they offered Ricciardo terms which matched Verstappen’s, though he still made the decision to join Renault.

“So we gave Max a contract at the beginning of that year in 2018 to secure his future,” Horner said.

“Daniel, I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that ‘hang on, I don’t want to be the support act here.’ And I could tell he was starting to think of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear and that this is the money that is also on the table [from other teams].

“But I remember I spoke to to our owner Dietrich Mateschitz before the Austrian Grand Prix, and I said ‘it’s looking a bit marginal with Daniel, can you just show him some love? Because you know, Helmut [Marko], obviously very pro Max. But I think if you could just balance things out, just let him know that you want him.’

“‘No problem. I’ll speak to him.’ So he took him upstairs after the race in Austria and they were gone for well over an hour and then they re-emerged, they reappeared both with smiles on their faces.

“Dietrich comes up to me, I said ‘well, how did it go?’ And he said ‘no problem. It’s not even a question.’

“I said: ‘Well, what did you agree with him?’ He said: ‘I said, we’ll give him whatever Max is on.’

“I was like, ‘Wow, do you know what we pay Max?’ And so I gave him the number and he said ‘who the f**k agreed to that?’ And I said ‘Well, you?’

“Then he was doing a test for us after the Hungarian race and it was like, Daniel will sign the paperwork on Monday. And suddenly Monday goes and he’s in the car on Tuesday. And I’m saying that I’m starting to smell a little bit of a rat here, because this is an enormous [contract], you’d have thought he’d have been in a rush to sign.

“He didn’t sign it before he got in the car in the morning and then now he’s gonna sign it at lunchtime, and that didn’t happen. And then he’s had to get out the car and go straight to the airport because he’s flying here to LA. He’ll call you when he gets to LA.

“So he rings me and he’s like ‘I’ve just got off the plane. I’ve been thinking on the flight on the way here. I’m not going to sign the contract. I’m going to take another contract.’

“I was like ‘wow, okay, have Mercedes or Ferrari come through with something?’ And he went ‘no, I’m going to sign for Renault.

“Because Daniel’s got a sense of humour, I was convinced he’s taking the piss here.

“‘You’re not going to Renault, stop f**king about, just tell me when you are going to sign that contract.’ So after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he was gonna go to Renault and it was disappointing.”

After two seasons at Renault, Ricciardo departed for McLaren for a spell of the same length. It was meant to be three, but poor performance saw his deal terminated a year early.

Ricciardo returned to the Red Bull fold from there, re-joining the grid as a mid-season F1 2023 replacement for Nyck de Vries at Red Bull’s second team.

However, the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix proved to be Ricciardo’s final race, perhaps in Formula 1 full stop, with Red Bull putting Liam Lawson in his seat for the final six rounds of F1 2024.