Australian insists he is not just picking up a pay cheque at the French team after his bold switch from Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo leans back and smiles his charming, toothy grin as he considers one of the formative moments of his childhood: the start of a journey that has led one of the most personable drivers on the Formula One grid to the greatest challenge of his career.

When the Renault driver competes in the team’s home French Grand Prix on Sunday – he has qualified in eighth place – he knows the task of returning them to winning ways could be his definitive achievement. He is taking to it with a steely seriousness that has informed his life perhaps far more than the easy going Aussie of popular perception.

“After a race in karting, Dad put the kart in the trailer and I thought it was over because I wasn’t taking it seriously,” he says. “He gave me the silent treatment the whole ride home. I called my friend and said: ‘I don’t think I am ever racing again’.

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“He wasn’t a pushy dad, but he was taking time off work when he was trying to build a business and if I wasn’t taking it seriously he wondered what was the point. I didn’t think Dad would take me to a track again. That was a realisation, knowing that it might be gone. That was the moment I knew I wanted it.”

Ricciardo took the unexpected decision last season to leave Red Bull to join Renault. He left a multiple world championship-winning team that was the third best on the grid with podiums and race wins within their grasp for a midfield team in the process of rebuilding. It was a bold move for the 29-year-old, who was well aware that success would not be immediate, nor easy.

Now in his ninth season in F1, Ricciardo has yet to be in a title fight. He was promoted to Red Bull from Toro Rosso in 2014, just as Mercedes began their domination of the turbo-hybrid era. At a crossroads in his career with his contract up for renewal last year, he faced perhaps the most important decision of his life, but it was not the first time he had been forced to seriously contemplate his future.

That moment in karting with his dad was pivotal. “It has stayed with me,” he says. “I do need a level of calmness and that’s why I try and have fun in interviews and appearances but if I am taking the piss and not applying myself, then I will tell myself to take hold. That level of discipline will always be there because I haven’t achieved what I want yet. That drive is still there.”

It was the biggest thing I have done. I didn't feel there was much room to build with Red Bull any more Daniel Ricciardo

The values his mother, Grace, and father, Giuseppe, instilled – staying grounded, appreciating the value of things – have stayed with him. But it was leaving home that has proved to be the most character building in his racing career.

In 2007, aged 17, he travelled to Europe to compete in Formula Renault. “That turned me from a boy to a man,” he says. “I was still young and immature. I changed instantly, I grew up, learned how to fend for myself, that was the biggest life-changing experience. You are hanging around older people with the team and you can’t be an idiot any more all the time because you look like an idiot.”

He joined F1 with HRT in 2011, before moving on to Toro Rosso in 2012. That year in Bahrain he did an exceptional job to claim sixth on the grid but was promptly swallowed up and was back in 14th by the end of lap one. Another highly instructive experience. “Everyone thought: ‘He’s the fast guy but he’s the easy guy. He’s never going to make it, he’s never going to survive here,’” he remembers. “It was a blessing in disguise, a big lesson was learned. I hated that feeling, I felt humiliated. I knew I was better than that.”

Renault’s signing of Ricciardo was a statement of intent by the team, who took two titles with Fernando Alonso in 2005 and 2006. They had not baulked at paying to ensure the Australian joined them as Alain Prost, their special adviser, made clear. “Daniel is more expensive than other drivers,” he said. “When you need that to help the team we did it.”

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Renault’s target this season was to move clear of the midfield, with the longer-term aim of at least being in the title fight by 2021. So far they have fallen short, standing fifth in the constructors’ championship, behind McLaren. Ricciardo has scored their best finish of the season with sixth in Canada. Engine reliability issues have hampered their progress, as have delays in bringing upgrades to the car.

Much is expected in France on Sunday. Ricciardo has an upgraded engine and a raft of new aerodynamics. Renault’s struggles have undoubtedly brought home to him the scale of the task but there are no regrets at moving to the French team, and he references Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Mercedes from McLaren that returned such immense success.

“It was the biggest thing I have done, even bigger than the move to Europe,” he says. “I didn’t feel there was much room to build with Red Bull any more. I thought there was more risk staying. Renault excited me. What Lewis did with Mercedes, if I was able to do that – that was instant motivation for me.”

With the move so unexpected, there were suggestions that money had been the driving motivation. It does not ring true for the Australian whose love of racing is clear. “One thing I really didn’t want was for people to say I just signed for Renault to chase a pay cheque,” he says. “That wasn’t the truth. I feel I have an obligation to make it work.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo on his way to qualifying in 8th position for the French Grand Prix. Photograph: Peter Fox/Getty Images

Ricciardo has repeatedly proved to have the talent to make good on this promise – if he has the machinery. His overtaking skills are among the best of his generation. He has seven wins, at the second in Hungary in 2014 he passed Hamilton and Alonso with consummate control and skill to claim victory. In 2017 in Azerbaijan he took three places in one magnificent piece of late braking, then pulled a similar move on Kimi Räikkönen at Monza. So natural does it look it is intriguing that he admits it was something he had to work at.

“The overtaking wasn’t with me at the start of my career. I was timid, nervous and I rarely pulled the trigger,” he says. “But once I started getting some momentum with it I wanted to rewrite the book on overtaking. So I made a conscious effort to do these switch-back moves and dummies, trying to be that bold guy.”

Being bold informed the move to Renault. Time will tell if it pays off, but for Ricciardo his experiences since those days with his father in karting have ensured that behind the smile it is the business behind the wheel that truly matters and the challenge with Renault is one only to be embraced. “There were too many times when I left a track with regret,” he says. “If only I tried that move. Why didn’t I? I didn’t like that feeling, so decided I would rather at least try.”