Cyril Abiteboul, head of Renault F1, has admitted his team can’t attract the likes of Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo has been rumoured to make a shock move to the French team, but this suggestion seems to have been turned away.
Ricciardo has been rumoured to join Ferrari or Mercedes once his contract runs out at Red Bull in the winter. When asked if he would be making a shock move to Renault, Abiteboul told Motorsport the team need to get “stuff right” before a driver of his quality can make a move.
“We are interested in talented drivers, and Ricciardo is a talented driver,” Abiteboul said. "If we want to seduce drivers like Ricciardo - the first thing that we need to do is to get our stuff right.”
“If we manage to build the best chassis-engine package, I am pretty sure that we can attract, because we can show - we are serious about our ambitions.”
With Renault’s current driver lineup, Hulkenberg and Sainz have placed the team in 5th, 1 point behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship.
Sainz is still under Red Bull contract, and that is out of their hands.
“Not a comfortable situation to be in, but we need to accept that we are still playing catch up on many areas and one of the areas is also driver market,” Abiteboul added.
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