Re: Formula 1: Daniel Ricciardo to move from Red Bull to Renault Many of us feel sad for Daniel Ricciardo, because he is one of those likeable personalities, but he has more than had his chances. Time flies fast, he’s actually been around for the last 13 years! That’s an incredibly long career in F1 by any standard!
“The last of the late brakers” , his overtaking skills when he was in-form was outstanding. In his prime years at Redbull, he was always composed, made very little driver errors, and was generally great with his race craft, although his one-lap speed was not his best trait. And to be fair and im leaving statistics out of this, he almost matched Max when they were team mates. Agreed, Max is in his own league, but i think if Ricciardo had stayed back in Redbull, we would have seen some really close fights between teammates ( which hasn’t happened in a really long time with any team now, Hamilton-Rosberg was mostly one-sided).
Ricciardo’s downward spiral started at Mclaren, he thought he had it easy with Norris, but he was really wrong! And i think he took it a bit too easy with Mclaren, almost to suggest that he doesn’t want to absorb any pressure or excel since he is anyway not in a race winning car.
And for all the criticism RedBull get for not being patient with drivers, i think they gave a solid comeback chance for Ricciardo in spite of Mclaren ousting him even by paying a huge sum! I mean, who gets these kind of second chances? Only if you are really close friends with someone like Christian Horner i guess!
Anyway, Ricciardo has made his money, built fame , he even has his own apparel brand, and im sure he will be a big draw in many events and possibly even in another series like Nascar etc.
Im actually quite happy that for the first time in many years, we are going to have so many young drivers next year. Kimi, Bearman, Doohan, Lawson! 4 new drivers! Some drivers are still here and well past their prime—Especially Bottas and Perez and its really sad that big teams like Redbull and even Audi / Sauber want to retain them in spite of some fantastic youngsters like Colapinto not having a drive as yet. I think it was Bearman’s outstanding ability to jump in the car earlier this year with just one FP3 session and still deliver has instilled some confidence into many team principals that they can take on some of these guys and not worry about consequences. |