Daniel Ricciardo emerged from the Canadian Grand Prix as Formula 1’s 105th race winner, and as an Australian myself, it was a proud and patriotic moment. But even trying to be as much of a neutral observer as one can, it’s still hard to avoid the sheer significance of the young West Australian’s achievements.
I’ve followed Dan’s career since he emerged on top of the Formula Renault pile in 2008, winning the Western European Cup, and only just being shaded to the Eurocup by Valterri Bottas. It was a talented grid that year, featuring many future GP2 stars, as well as Ricciardo’s future Toro Rosso team-mate, Jean-Eric Vergne.
As part of the Red Bull young driver program, Ricciardo then went on to win British F3 in 2009 and was only just shaded to the Formula Renault 3.5 title in 2010 by Mikhail Aleshin. And once his F1 promotion came through the next year, Ricciardo was immediately a close match for the vastly more experienced Tonio Liuzzi at HRT.
However, the real test was to come when Mark Webber vacated his Red Bull Racing seat during 2013, pitching Ricciardo and Vergne into a direct fight at Toro Rosso for the promotion. It was Ricciardo though who found something extra, with both a series of stellar qualifying laps as well as five point scoring finishes to zero to finish the year.
But the tests weren’t finished there. Newly promoted to the big time, he was to face a newly crowned four-time world champion coming off the back of nine straight wins, within his own team. Bigger challenges you won’t get.
But undaunted as ever in his approach to yet another monumental task, so far, Ricciardo has totally destroyed that challenge as well. With a 5-2 qualifying record and a 5-2 race record (6-1 if you take the disqualification out), Sebastian Vettel has been comprehensively beaten.
What all that essentially establishes is that Ricciardo is consistent, undaunted, supremely quick and a man of great potential. But is he a future world champion? And is he better than the previous world champion?
For me, yes and perhaps!
It’s widely believed that Ricciardo will win a world championship, sooner rather than later. The pace, the consistency, the lack of fear; these are all crucial elements. But as cliche as it sounds, a champion driver also needs an x-factor – the ability to make the critical move, to throw the killer punch, to make the difference the car can’t and to have the presence of mind to know when the moment has arrived. And Ricciardo is capable of that. After countless laps stuck behind Sergio Perez in Canada, he was the only one in that five car train who made a move successfully. And what a move it was – late, brave and almost, but not quite, on the grass. The key point though, is that he saw the moment, pounced on the chance, made the difference and put himself in a position to convert an easy, unremarkable third into a shock win. And when championships get decided by less than 25 points, you want those qualities in your driver.
All that’s not to say Vettel’s lost it or doesn’t have it anymore. The last four years proved beyond doubt that he’s got all those skills and more. I can’t count how many phenomenal qualifying laps he produced, and how many passes he made on track, all of which made the difference that won the races. This year though, the car has changed, the engine has changed and so have the tyres. They don’t suit everyone and for Vettel, it’s taking time to adapt. Kimi Raikkonen’s in a not too dissimilar position. Crucially though, you don’t become a four time world champion by accident, and you don’t lose those qualities overnight. Vettel is top shelf, and will always be so.
For now though, Ricciardo leads the charge. And one day, in a car that suits him, he’ll have what it takes to win it all. What will be interesting is when Vettel gets his mojo back – will he be on a par with Ricciardo, or will he sneak ahead like we all assumed would be a dead certainty prior to the season? One thing’s for sure – we’ll be getting yet more supremely high level competition, and as a result, world championships delivered by both drivers in the years to come.
