Daniel Ricciardo caught many by surprise when he announced his move from Red Bull to Renault for next season – so much so that even his soon-to-be employers, who are still re-establishing themselves in Formula 1 after returning as a works team in 2016, didn’t expect to hear the words ‘I’ll join’ from the Australian…

During the summer shutdown, Ricciardo got the F1 world talking when he revealed that after almost five years with Red Bull Racing, having joined the Red Bull family in 2008 as a member of their Junior Team, he would leave the Milton Keynes squad for pastures new.

His destination was soon confirmed as Renault, partnering Nico Hulkenberg next year, but the move was something of a shock, given Red Bull have a proven race-winning car while Renault are slowly moving up the midfield and do not yet have a car to challenge for the podium.

And the team’s special advisor Alain Prost, speaking on the latest episode of our Beyond The Grid podcast which is released on Wednesday, has revealed that after Renault laid their cards on the table for Ricciardo, they were taken aback by the good news – especially given his ambitions of becoming a world champion.

When asked by host Tom Clarkson if Ricciardo is the final piece of the puzzle for Renault, Prost gave a frank assessment: “If you ask me this kind of question, I’m going to answer very honestly – and I think it’s a little bit too soon because we are not there.

“When we talked to Daniel, it was a very frank discussion. He knows everything, he has seen everything – and he knows he can not be a world champion next year. We are going to be better for sure, but it’s going to take time.

“We were a bit surprised when he said ‘yes I want to come’. He’s going to allow us to push the team to become even better and better all the time. It’s a little bit more pressure on the team because of him. But at the end, it’s positive pressure.”