In an interview with Sky Sports F1 yesterday, Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo believes his most unlikely of victories at high-speed Spa gives Red Bull hope that there are more “good things ahead” in the remainder of the season as the Australian begins to emerge as an outside championship contender.
For the third time in his maiden season at Red Bull (and the second race in succession), Ricciardo took full advantage of Mercedes mistakes which this time caused by their drivers running into each other and allowed Ricciardo to win the Grand Prix.
Although his points deficit to Nico Rosberg, who chased him to the chequered flag at Spa as Red Bull gambled on making one less pit stop for Ricciardo, remains a large one at 64 points. With the prospect of the 50-point ‘Abu Double’ 2014 decider in November means Ricciardo could remain in mathematical title contention for a good while yet, particularly if Mercedes keep tripping up.
Renault-powered Red Bull had been expected to struggle at Spa owing to the circuit’s long straights but by employing a low-downforce set-up managed to negate much of their well-documented straight-line speed advantage. With F1’s fastest circuit of all, Monza, next up in two weeks’ time ahead of some more traditional Red Bull strongholds as the final flyaways begin, Ricciardo says he sees “some good things ahead”.
In his interview with Sky Sports F1 yesterday, Ricciardo stated the following:-
‘I can’t really [believe it]. It feels a bit surreal again, especially around here at Spa. Everyone was saying ‘you won’t really have a chance around here’ but I think we had some really good pace today and surprised ourselves. If we can collect maximum points around here it gives some more hope for the circuits that are going to come later in the season. Singapore, Suzuka, just a couple to mention.
‘It’s great. We’re really motivated right now. Monza we know will be tricky again but the package we brought here was pretty racy and trying to take something from here.’
Ricciardo really did a great performance yesterday to win the race in Spa. But Ricciardo extracted the pace and performance he needed to in order to get himself into that position and currently, he is the best driver bar Fernando Alonso who is able to do this. As Ricciardo says, the fact that he achieved a win at a track that many thought they wouldn’t be able to will only encourage and motivate Ricciardo and Red Bull even more to circuits such as Singapore and Suzuka to get the best they can from their car.
Despite being outqualified by team-mate Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo finished a massive 51 seconds ahead of the quadruple World Champion at the chequered flag, having earlier overtaken the sister car when the German made a mistake at Pouhon.
Ricciardo Inheritied the lead when Rosberg pitted early to change a front wing. Red Bull took advantage of Ricciardo’s strong tyre management in the RB10 to complete one less pitstop than the Mercedes which was a bold tactic which Ricciardo himself admits made for a challenging final stint as Rosberg closed in by up to three seconds a lap on fresh soft tyres. Ricciardo added the following:-
‘That was difficult. When you’re the leader as well you feel you’re the most vulnerable whether to stop or not, but basically Simon my engineer came on the radio and said ‘there’s 11 laps left can these tyres get to the end?’ I said ‘yeah, I think I can more or less keep this pace’ and was able to. In the last couple of laps I was able to get a couple of more tenths out of it, so I was just having a bit of fun then.’
As Ricciardo points out, as the leader of a race you are at risk of things going wrong for example a Safety Car could come out or the tyres may not last the until the end of the race. But from what Ricciardo has stated, it is clear that he managed his tyres effectively which helped him secure the win yesterday at Spa.
Ricciardo’s previous two wins in Canada and Hungary were achieved via brilliant late-race overtaking moves, so Ricciardo was pleased to show a different aspect of his growing skillset on Sunday. In the latter stages of his interview, Ricciardo said the following:-
‘There’s been a lot of good things from the win. The last two came from a more aggressive style of race but today was more calculated. I don’t mean to talk myself up but it was nice to win from different circumstances.’
It is clear that Ricciardo will have achieved a lot from his win yesterday. As he rightly says his first two wins were due to him being aggressive, being brave enough and also being in a better position to overtake and win. But yesterday, we saw that Ricciardo is more than capable of using strategy, taking advantage of that and then able being able to manage the car and bring it home when it matters.
Overall, I would have to agree with Ricciardo and I believe that if he keeps him his current level of performance, Ricciardo will only improve and deliver even further. Already Ricciardo has proven that he is more than a match for Vettel, has settled into life at Red Bull well, with many pundits and fans believing that it would be difficult for him.
But this has not been the case. Ricciardo has just got on with the job at hand, which is to drive the wheels off his car, extract the pace and performance needed to get the best result possible that enables him to be there when his rivals cannot perform on the track and he has been rewarded with three wins in the sport so far as a result of his hard work.
And I do truly believe that if Ricciardo keeps doing what he is doing at the races and on the track, Ricciardo could find himself challenging for the title if Mercedes cannot get a handle on the issues they are experiencing at the moment. And if anyone can do this, it has to be Ricciardo and if the chance is there, he will grab it with both hands without a shadow of a doubt and remind everyone why he is currently a potential world champion of the future.
