Daniel Ricciardo is NOT running from a fight.

The Australian’s former boss Christian Horner thinks Ricciardo leapt to Renault – where his pay is now rivalled only by what Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel earn – simply because he fears being beaten by Max Verstappen.

But that’s not the Danny we all know and love. Ricciardo is definitely up for it.

He’s just trying to be smart, like Lewis Hamilton was in 2013 when he caught the rising swell of Mercedes’ ultimately crushing and years-long wave of dominance.

Yes, Renault is no Mercedes or Ferrari. In fact, Cyril Abiteboul is very much annoyed that the partly state-owned French manufacturer is not willing to go anywhere near the top two’s enormous spending addictions.

However, also without a mammoth budget but with Fernando Alonso in the cockpit, Renault crushed its giant opponents in the mid-2000s. And now another effort to create a genuine title-challenging works outfit is bubbling up nicely. Cyril is ably supported by Alain Prost. And Ricciardo is the new Alonso.

“There is a fantastic opportunity to be seized and room for a leader to emerge at Renault,” said Abiteboul, his new boss, this week.

Horner can say what he wants, but there was no room at the Red Bull Inn. The manger is occupied, and the gold, frankincense, and myrrh were delivered to someone else.

Even the energy drink maker’s biggest bosses, Dr Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz, openly admit that their motivation is to make Verstappen the youngest champion in F1 history.

But surely Ricciardo should have stayed! It’s a top 3 car and that’s obviously better than Renault, right?!

Wrong! When you’re still in your 20s, awesomely good and now suspicious that maybe Verstappen is going to get the royal treatment, Danny is making the right move to Renault.

In yellow, he will be The Main Man.

“I felt like I had to work too hard to justify what I wanted,” Ricciardo says of his negotiations with Red Bull. “Perhaps the love just wasn’t there.”

And Renault, having also fallen out with Red Bull, sniffed blood and showed Danny some of the love he rightly wanted and deserved.

But what about Nico? Does all this mean The Hulk can’t also claim to be the main man in yellow?

Unfortunately for the supremely gifted German, it does indeed mean that.

Now, Nico Hulkenberg is good. “WOW, is he good,” I thought back in 2007, when on a circuit in Sydney I saw first-hand the fire in his eyes as he made clowns of his rivals in the now defunct A1GP series.

But for some reason it just hasn’t worked out for him in F1. And while he’s got a good name in the paddock, how many teams are clamouring to sign the driver whose main claim to F1 fame is having driven the most races in history without a single podium?

It’s just true that, incredibly talented though they are, some drivers just lack the “je ne sais quoi” that carries other similarly-talented drivers to incredible results, wins and titles.

Unfortunately for Nico, he’s now in a Ricciardo/Red Bull-type scenario — apparently with every chance to race against his teammate, but stuck digesting the fact that someone else is The Chosen One.

So while The Hulk’s mission now is to cling onto his F1 career by not being humiliated by Ricciardo, Danny’s mission is to lead Renault to glory.

He has fire in his eyes. Apart from the odd strategic quip justifying his move away from Red Bull and Verstappen, he has kept it super quiet and cool over the winter.

He’s feathering his nest at Renault. He’s settling in for the long haul. It has to work out. He has to MAKE it work.

2019 is step one.