Guenther Steiner exclusive: The truth behind Daniel Ricciardo’s Haas talks

Guenther Steiner revealed that Haas never tried to actively sign Daniel Ricciardo and suggested the “spark in his eyes” was gone.

After Ricciardo was kicked out of McLaren, one of the teams rumoured to be interested in signing him was Haas but Steiner has now revealed they never even got to the table to negotiate any form of contract.

Guenther Steiner gives verdict on Daniel Ricciardo departure

At the time, Mick Schumacher was on his way out of Haas, leaving an open seat alongside Kevin Magnussen, one which many thought Steiner may try and put Ricciardo in.

But with them both now out of F1, Steiner revealed that he never actually tried to sign Ricciardo because he believed his love of racing had faded.

“I didn’t try to get him,” Steiner exclusively told PlanetF1.com. “I spoke with him but I was not sure that he was ready to go back racing.

“I couldn’t see the spark in his eyes. I didn’t know if it would be the right thing and we couldn’t afford him at the time anyway, we never had any money. Beggars can’t be choosers.

“He just had a difficult time since he left Renault. I don’t know why. Obviously, it does not have to do with his talent because he didn’t lose his talent. I think it is the pressure. He couldn’t deal with it anymore, not to be alpha, to be beta and it didn’t work for him anymore.

“Maybe he should have waited a little bit longer after he left McLaren to come back just because he was out not long and then he came in. He replaced another driver which wasn’t good enough so there was no calm before him, you know. Once he left Renault, it just went from bad to worse and spiralled out of control.”

Ricciardo is not the only driver whose career has ended before they would like it to and Steiner remarked that it is sometimes a case of luck as to how long a driver survives.

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“Wrong place, wrong time is always one of the reasons given when people lose their seat but I think with Danny, I think McLaren was at the time not a bad team. Obviously, they were not winning races, but they weren’t bad.

“But the biggest problem was his team-mate. Lando was just beating him and he couldn’t live with that one or he struggled with that one. He could live with it, but he struggled.

“But Nico Hulkenberg left Renault because of Danny because Danny was better but I think in the three years [Hulkenberg was out of F1], he found his peace, he found his confidence that ‘I can still do this’ and came back stronger.

“But Danny never really took time off. Danny went from McLaren to be reserve driver at Red Bull to be around the world and then was put in that AlphaTauri. It was always turmoil for him.

“So I think maybe for him, staying out one or two years would have been better than staying out just six months.”

Guenther Steiner was speaking to PlanetF1.com in promotion of his new book Unfiltered: My Incredible Decade in Formula One which is out now.