Ricciardo: If Renault were lower than P5 it “would have been a punch in the guts"

Daniel Ricciardo has said that it “would have been a punch in the guts” for Renault financially if they had finished lowers that P5 in the constructors championship after edging Toro Rosso by six points.

Renault finished on 122 points as ‘best of the rest’ in 2018 behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull but could not repeat the same form as they scored 31 less, losing out on P4 to McLaren.
 
Toro Rosso weren’t far off beating the French team to fifth and Ricciardo believes that a lower drop in the table would have been a huge hit financially to the team.
 
“Yes, that definitely would have been a punch in the guts,” said Ricciardo as quoted by the official Formula 1 website.

“Financially, it is. You put the financial loss onto the motivation loss, and we didn’t do that. So let’s use that as a positive and say 'alright boys, we dodged a bullet, so let’s avoid all bullets next year and **** some **** up'.”

For 2020 Renault have taken on Esteban Ocon, from his reserve role at Mercedes, to drive alongside Ricciardo with a vision podium finishes and securing at least P4 in the standings once again.