Ricciardo leaves Renault: "Again 'kind of awkward' this season"

Daniel Ricciardo will leave his well-paid seat with the Renault F1 team in 2021. The Australian is going to fill the gap left by Carlos Sainz at McLaren. In 2020 the Australian will have to finish the season at Renault. That could lead to some uncomfortable situations for some colleagues.

It's not the first time for Ricciardo that he left his team and made that clear halfway through the season. When the Honey Badger said goodbye to Red Bull Racing in 2018, he felt a little out of the loop at the end of the season. This season he will experience that again, although the news has been a while in the meantime.

In conversation with Motorsport.com the driver reports: "Maybe at the first reunion with a few people that small moment of awkwardness will arise. I also experienced it a couple of years ago."

Ricciardo continues: "Actually, I don't think it's going to distract us very much. The news has been out for a while and it will just be back to work. We're all looking forward to racing again. Hopefully we'll get a nice number of races and we can just finish this season strong".

Ricciardo says he won't abandon Renault until next year. He has already left it behind in that sense. For the Australian it's just a matter of focusing on racing.