Daniel Ricciardo has revealed the extent of his talks over potentially joining Ferrari for a seat in Formula 1 team.
Lewis Hamilton stunned the driver market when Mercedes announced he would be leaving the team at the end of the 2024 season to join Ferrari.
Ricciardo was previously linked to Ferrari for a seat in 2021 to partner Charles Leclerc, after Sebastian Vettel announced he was leaving the team for Aston Martin.
The Australian eventually ended up at McLaren, but he was in the running for the seat at Ferrari before they opted to go with Carlos Sainz.
"There was conversations, but it was never it was never like 'Here's the contract, will you sign it?' It never got to that point," he told media, including RacingNews365.
"So it was never close to a point where it was in my hands and I certainly engaged in some conversations, but I would say it got to the first level it never got to the second or even the third.
"It was never crazy close, because also they were a top team so it was always something at the time I was keeping an eye on."
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Ricciardo: I try not to put too much weight on stuff like that
Ricciardo has some connection to Italy, with his father being born in the country.
He tried to not think of this cultural association and heritage of the team when making a decision, instead focusing on their competitiveness on track.
"I never wanted to just put everything into that like 'Oh, it would be amazing to be a Ferrari driver one day' I kind of had a more simple approach that if it works, if the timings right, maybe that's a thing that happens. But I didn't put everything into it," said Ricciardo.
"At the end of the day, it's a very prestigious race team, but it's a race team just like the others. I try not to put too much weight into all the other stuff that comes with it."
He will instead contest his 14th season in F1 with Red Bull sister team, RB, having replaced Nyck de Vries midway through last year.
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