Daniel Ricciardo stated he by no means requested himself what might need been if he was nonetheless driving alongside Max Verstappen at Pink Bull this season.
Ricciardo joined Pink Bull in 2014 and was Verstappen’s teammate from mid-2016 till he left for Renault on the finish of 2018.
Verstappen received the championship at Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Pink Bull’s first F1 title since 2013.
Chatting with ESPN on Friday night time forward of that race Ricciardo, who now races for McLaren, stated: “Taking a look at Max this 12 months, I one hundred pc do not feel any envy, jealousy or weirdness to him or the crew.
“Weirdly sufficient, I might be very, very completely happy for them!”
Ricciardo was Verstappen’s best teammate at Pink Bull, with the crew biking via Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Sergio Gasly within the years since.
The Australian stated he stopped serious about that chapter of his profession some time in the past.
“I haven’t got any [regrets]. Folks in all probability thought ‘I’m wondering what Daniel thought this 12 months, would he even have been preventing for a championship?’.
“Up till proper now I have never really considered that. I believe it is onerous to reply in a means that… the simplest solution to say it’s, I actually did, and never in a damaging means, I indifferent myself from it.
“As soon as I closed the e-book with Pink Bull I actually tried to place all my vitality into the following half. I actually did not have any over-hanging, like, what might’ve, what ought to’ve.”
Ricciardo, who claimed McLaren’s first race win since 2012 at September’s Italian Grand Prix, stated a giant a part of the choice he made in 2018 was ensuring he might reside with himself if Pink Bull went on to win the championship after he left.
“I bear in mind via the choice course of I even informed myself, ‘can I reside with myself if, in 2019, Pink Bull win the championship? How is that going to make me really feel?'”
“So I might already addressed these issues. And now we’re clearly a number of years faraway from that. I undoubtedly haven’t any… I am probably not that religious or no matter you wanna name it, however I do assume issues occur for a purpose.
“From that I do not actually really feel like if I stayed possibly issues would have been totally different. I do not actually really feel that. I do not assume like oh ‘what might have been, I might have been double world champ by now’, or no matter. I used to assume like that after I was youthful however I really feel like clearly the choice I made, I gave lots of thought and I needed to transfer on with that.”
He added: “This wasn’t even for that particular scenario, however my dad informed me one thing after I was younger. He stated ‘in the event you look too far again, you will get a sore neck’. It is true, as soon as you decide and as soon as you decide you thought lengthy and onerous about, I believe it is vital that you just transfer ahead with that”.