Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has claimed former driver Daniel Ricciardo was "badly advised" to pass up a contract extension that would have seen him pocket the same as Max Verstappen.
Speaking to the Eff Won with DRS podcast, Horner revealed that late team owner Dietrich Mateschitz had agreed to match Verstappen's deal months before Ricciardo signed with Renault (now Alpine F1 Team) during the 2018 off-season.
During that season, Ricciardo had been locked in talks with the team but it now seems that the ever-growing rise of Verstappen combined with the aftermath of the pair's crash at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix collision and concerns around Honda's imminent engine partnership with Red Bull, were enough to push him towards Renault.
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"Daniel is a great guy, who was very badly advised earlier in his career," Horner said.
"Everybody f—s up at some point and I think he recognised that he made a mistake [in leaving Red Bull], he didn't have good advice around him at the point he left us and he could see that Max was growing, and probably didn't realise just how good he was going to be.
"It was obvious at that stage that Max was coming and you could just see the raw talent, it just needed polishing a bit, so we gave Max a contract at the beginning of 2018 to secure his future.
"I remember Daniel being upset at the time, and suddenly felt that he didn't want to be the support act, and he got a lot of noise in his ear about money on the table.
"I spoke with Dietrich [Mateschitz] before the Austrian GP and said, 'Look, it's a bit marginal with Daniel [over signing a new contract], can you just show him some love, because Helmut [Marko] is obviously very pro-Max?
"'Just balance things out and let him know that you want him?' So he took Daniel upstairs after the race in Austria, and they were gone for well over an hour and then both reappeared with smiles on their faces."
Horner stated that Mateschitz had promised to pay Ricciardo a salary that matched Verstappen's, without knowing exactly what that figure was.
"I said [to Mateschitz], 'What did you agree with him?' and he said, 'I said, I'll just give him whatever we do Max.
"I was like, 'Wow, do you know what we pay Max?' and so I gave him the number and he said, 'Who the f— agreed to that' and I said, 'You.'
"He said, 'Oh that's a lot of money, but he's is a great guy, so let's do it, give him the same deal that Max has.'
"So [Daniel's] agent is obviously jumping through hoops at the time, and that was for a two-year deal [for 2019 and 2020]."
But after five years with the top-tier team, Ricciardo signed with Renault to chase a better fit.
Since then, the 34-year-old joined McLaren for the 2021 and 2022 seasons before being ousted with one year remaining on his contract to make way for fellow Australian Oscar Piastri.
He subsequently signed on as Red Bull Racing's third driver — four years after he departed the squad with whom he won seven grands prix.
Remarkably, Ricciardo was catapulted back into the cockpit of an F1 car in July after Red Bull's sister team AlphaTauri axed rookie driver Nyck de Vries after just 10 races.
He re-signed with the team for 2024, possibly creating a stepping stone to replacing Sergio Perez in Red Bull's 2025 driver line-up.
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