Danny Ric to Renault!!!

[tlmiller]

More here.

[crosscourt]

Question becomes, whos going to take his place? He saw the writing on the wall that Verstappen is the future of Red Bull but how about Leclerc as his running mate? Its more likely I think that Sainz will end up at Red Bull even though its been reported he may go to McLaren.

[tlmiller]

No chance of Leclerc. He's going to be partnering Vettel I'm almost sure of it. Raikonen's a great team player, but I think Ferrari wants someone that's capable of stepping up and taking over a race if Vettel is for whatever reason is unable to and Raikonen just seems like that's no longer going to be him.

I agree that Sainz is a good bet. The one downfall of that would be when Verstappen and Sainz were teammates at Torro Rosso, it was NOT a happy pairing.

I'd say there's a 0% chance of it happening, but I'd like to see them lure Alonso away from McLaren. I'd love to see what he could do withe a half decent car and what looks to be becoming a half-decent engine (finally). But unless they bring someone new in (can't imagine who in their development track would be ready) or promote Gasly, Sainz is obviously the best driver they would have access to.

[crosscourt]

Wont happen with Alonso as he will never drive another car with a Honda engine. Raikkonen leaving isnt a sure thing and some European sources claim hes going to stay and Leclerc will remain with Sauber. Estaban Ocon though is available.

[crosscourt]

Red Bull really was caught by surprise by Ric's move to Renault based on Horner's comments. It appears they thought everything was fine, they were treating him the same and he would return to them.

[tlmiller]

I don't honestly blame him. They gave Verstappen far more money than he makes, and in their ~1.5 years together, in terms of points, overall Ricciardo has quite handily DOMINATED their partnership. Even with all his bad luck this year, he's still ahead of Verstappen in the points (although barely).

If I were in his shoes, I'd want to move on as well. Pay my (thus far) far inferiro teammate significantly more than I make, then I'll take my talents somewhere else.

[crosscourt]

One could say that about Leclerc as well but you can obviously see the potential of his driving as well as Verstappen. For all the issues, youth, lack of experience, Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel all said they thought Verstappen would be a brilliant driver. Initially Riccardo was dominant and overshadowed Verstappen but recently in both races and testing its evened out quite a bit(Verstappen had car issues this year as well). Verstappen had begun to use a measured approach and as the car reliability improved his results also did. Lets remember what Hamilton and Vettel were like very young and i can see Verstappen in the same light.

I think Verstappen is a smaller part of the issue as Riccardo wanted more money, sure, but he also didnt want to take the chance that Honda screws up and he ends up with nothing. Alonso learned that the hard way and Riccardo was already familiar and spent most of his career on Renault engines. Driving for the factory team means no screw ups because of the tense relationship with Red Bull. Renault will have a higher focus and has a goal to be a top 4 team. If he can grow with them and create something for himself its amazing. If he screws up he will wallow in the mid field. Horner expressed sentiments similar to mine and it will be interesting to see how it goes.