Determination, courage, pride and, most of all, talent; Daniel Ricciardo has them all. His results so far in 2014 have exceeded expectations and let’s hope that continues for some time yet.
You can relive Daniel’s victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix below. There’s over 100 photos on offer and some of them even feature subjects other than Daniel and his winning celebrations!
It’s always a great feeling being a Formula 1 fan in Australia when you go to bed late at night after an Aussie victory and you wake up on Monday morning and hear all about the race win on the morning news bulletins. It’s a great way to start the week. Thank you Daniel!
The most pleasing thing about Ricciardo’s win at the Hungarian Grand Prix was the way he had to fight for it. Same with Canada, too, he hasn’t yet dominated a race from start to finish. That’s a legacy of not having the best car this year. It’s meant Daniel has had to either create opportunities for himself or take advantage of good luck coming his way during a race.
It seems odd to say it, given he’s the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race so far in 2014, but Daniel’s two wins have been great development for him as a driver. He’s still learning and he’s proving he has the bottle and the skill to fight for race wins. Let’s hope it’s not too long until we see him fighting for a world championship. Clearly, he has the class.
Even Fernando and Lewis agree, as you will read below.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
What the hell just happened? I’ll tell you what happened, Daniel Ricciardo just won the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix! That’s what just happened.
Proving the Murray Walkerism that “Anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does” Fernando Alonso finished second and Lewis Hamilton, who started from the pit lane, finished third. So, again, what the hell just happened!
The track was wet for the race start and all the drivers started on intermediates. Nico Rosberg made a clean getaway and went about opening up a sizeable gap to those behind. Valtteri Bottas showed some smarts off the line and overtook Sebastian Vettel at the first corner to claim P2.
Daniel lost a couple of places at the start and was in P6 but worked his way back to P5. Marcus Ericsson then had his most influential F1 race to date after he binned his car and invited the Safety Car onto the track.
The timing was such that Daniel was able to quickly dive into the pits for slick tyres while the first four cars had to do almost a complete lap behind the Safety Car. The wash up of all that saw a fortunate Daniel inherit the race lead.
After the Safety Car came in, off he went. The lead was lost briefly to Jenson Button, who was running intermediates on the still drying track, but that didn’t last and Dan reclaimed the lead which he held until lap 22.
Sergio Perez spun on the last corner and smashed his car into the pit wall, which brought out the Safety Car for a second time. Again, Ricciardo was quick to pit, a move which eventually worked to his benefit.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton was able to make solid progress through the field despite starting from pit lane and then spinning off the track momentarily on lap 2. By the end of the first Safety Car period he had risen to P7, only two places behind Rosberg.
Amazingly, as the race progressed it looked as though Hamilton could be in with a chance of victory. Fernando Alonso, too, was having a good run and inherited the lead of the race after Ricciardo came in for fresh tyres with 15 laps to go.
Daniel rejoined the race in good shape and set about chasing those ahead of him including Alonso, Hamilton and Rosberg. Alonso’s strategy required him to do 32 laps in his final stint and Hamilton, too, was on old tyres. Rosberg also came in for a pit stop, gifting P3 to Daniel, before he also started chasing the leading trio.
Alonso was able to hold Hamilton and Ricciardo at bay with clean defensive driving. However, his pace was slowing as his tyres lost more life and this closed the gap to little more than a second back to Ricciardo in P3. On newer tyres Daniel needed a couple of attempts to get past Hamilton for P2, but showed great racecraft to out manouevre his more experienced rival. He quickly caught Alonso and used DRS to great effect to maximise a half chance and take the lead.
With only three laps to go Ricciardo was able to build a safe margin, leaving Alonso to defend against Hamilton and a super quick Rosberg. Somehow the superior Mercedes pair could not do what Daniel did and overtake Alonso. The race settled with a totally unpredictable first three and Rosberg left to rue his chances in P4.
Felipe Massa was fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen (his best result since returning to Ferrari). Sebastian Vettel was seventh and had only himself to blame after a final corner spin on lap 32. He was lucky not to have crashed out but did sufficient damage to his tyres to ruin his chances of a better result.
Valtteri Bottas’ day was cruelled by unfortunate pit timing and he could only manage P8. While Jean-Eric Vergne and Jenson Button rounded out the top 10.
His second grand prix win seemed to sit better with a beaming Daniel Ricciardo, who showed he has no fear or talent deficit with the world champions he’s mixing it with. It’s a great result for the young Aussie as the teams go into the mid-season break before racing returns at Spa in late August.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
One of the highlights from the 2014 German Grand Prix was the battle between Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso. Two-time world champion Alonso eventually won that battle for fifth place, but he was very impressed with the driving abilities of our Daniel.
“Daniel is a surprise from Australia,” Alonso told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “I think he’s doing unbelievable; I think he’s seven-three [in qualifying] in the first ten races with Sebastian [Vettel], so it’s something we probably didn’t suspect.
“He’s driving fantastically and today he was battling very smart—always taking the slipstream of me after I pass him and braking very late, attacking very late and never missing a corner.
“He was very, very smart, very respectful with the rules and it was a great fight.”
Alonso later added he was managing fuel towards the end of the race and was lucky not to concede P4 back to Daniel on the last lap.
“For the last stint I was saving fuel but I was battling with Ricciardo,” he said. “So for some laps you have to decide to give up the position and cross the line or fight with Ricciardo and be on the limit to cross the line.
“I decide to fight with Ricciardo, be in the position and then I will try to manage the fuel as good as I can.
“On the last lap, I had to save fuel massively and I was in eighth gear all lap and it was lucky that there was not 100 metres more.”
[Source: Sky Sports F1 | Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
Amateur footage uploaded to YouTube gives us another look at the opening lap crash from the 2014 German Grand Prix involving Felipe Massa and Kevin Magnussen. You can also see Daniel Ricciardo forced way off track to avoid the incident.
The race stewards investigated the crash and decided neither Massa nor Magnussen were responsible and no further action was taken. Of course, the drivers don’t always see it like that.
“Luckily I am OK but I am not happy,” said Felipe Massa. “I was in front going into the corner, and so to have another race ended by another driver is not easy. I am doing my best, the team are doing their best, and we just aren’t getting the chances we need.
“Going into the first corner I was near to Valtteri but had to back off to stop an accident, sadly some others didn’t do the same. I am obviously very disappointed.”
Meanwhile, Kevin Magnussen defended himself saying he was unable to avoid contact with Massa.
“A real pity: I think I could’ve had a decent race if I hadn’t had the accident at Turn One,” Magnussen said. “I need to see a replay of the accident, but I feel that, if I’d had somewhere to go, then there wouldn’t have been contact with Felipe.
“I did my best to try and avoid the accident, but there wasn’t much else I could do.”
Everyone loves a winner, but the British love British winner more than anyone else. Thankfully, for them, Lewis Hamilton came up trumps at Silverstone and gave the likes of David Croft and countless others cause for unabated nationalism.
I’m not sure us Aussies would be as bad if Daniel ever wins in Melbourne.
Here’s the transcript from the post-race press conference at the British Grand Prix. We’ll start with a few words from Daniel Ricciardo who explained a one-stop strategy wasn’t his original plan.
“We chose to restart on the prime,” Daniel said. “It didn’t seem like the best thing to do at first because we were really slow at the restart. Valtteri and Fernando got past me pretty easily and pulled away and I was coming on the radio basically saying ‘let’s see if we can try something a little bit different’ as we didn’t really have the pace as we hoped.
“Once we came in for the option, we just ran and pushed pretty much for the whole stint. I didn’t intend on doing a one-stop when I started on that tyre but laps ticked off and we were still able to keep the pace. The team said ‘do you think you could do another 15–20 laps’ and I was like ‘at the moment, yeah, I think we can’, so we stayed out and just held on at the end. It was awesome.
“I think all three of us had a bit of redemption on our plate today. It was a pretty dismal Saturday for us. I think we’re all pretty happy. This is definitely one of my best podiums this year.”
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
On the weekend Silverstone celebrated its 50th anniversary Lewis Hamilton delighted the home crowd by winning the British Grand Prix. It’s his 27th career win and brings him alongside Sir Jackie Stewart to equal seventh on the all-time list.
In even better news for Lewis he has reduced the championship title race to just four points after teammate Nico Rosberg was forced to retire with gearbox issues. Rosberg led the race up until his Lap 28 retirement. Lewis, though, was only too happy to assume the lead which he held comfortably until the chequered flag.
Valtteri Bottas achieved his best grand prix result by finishing second, improving one step at a time after his third place in Austria. It was an impressive result after starting from P14 and using a one-stop strategy to climb twelve places. Daniel Ricciardo also employed a one-stop tyre strategy to elevate himself from a P8 starting position to finish in third place.
An opening lap crash by Kimi Raikkonen brought out a red flag. Raikkonen ran wide into Turn 5 and when he rejoined the track on Wellington Straight he ran over a bump which caused him to lose control and crash head-on into an armco barrier. The impact spat him back across the track and Felipe Massa, in his 200th grand prix, clipped Raikkonen’s Ferrari while trying to avoid contact.
Both drivers were forced to retire from the race and concerns over Raikkonen’s immediate health were eased when he emerged from his car. He later complained of ankle pain and will be monitored after Ferrari later revealed the impact of the crash was registered at 47G.
Jenson Button finished fourth after also opting for a one-stop strategy. Button was closing in fast on third place as the race drew to an end. Perhaps with another lap or two he may have been able to overtake Ricciardo for P3.
A stoush between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso provided entertainment as they diced wheel-to-wheel. Both drivers got on the radio to complain about poor standards from the other and in the end Vettel came up trumps finishing in P5, Alonso in P6. Although, Vettel will be sour after he started the race on the front row, while Alonso will feel better about his day after starting form a lowly P16.
The top 10 was rounded out by Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg and the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne.
Right from the season outset Daniel Ricciardo has shown he’s neither intimdated nor inferior to Red Bull Racing’s golden child Sebastian Vettel. The young Aussie is comfortably ahead of the four-time world champion in the 2014 standings and has more often than not been the best of the drivers left in the wake of the runaway Mercedes AMG drivers.
Neither of the Red Bull drivers had a weekend to remember in Austria, but Ricciardo collected some consolation points, while Vettel suffered yet another retirement. Is Vettel’s poor run simply down to bad luck, or is it something more?
Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion who now works in the media, says something more sinister is at play.
“He’s a four-time World Champion who has earned the titles won, but now Red Bull Racing is treating him like they were to Mark Webber,” Villeneuve said in an interview with OmniCorse.it [translated].
Villeneuve goes on to suggest that the season is all but over for Vettel, as far as Red Bull is concerned.
“They seem to have decided to focus only on Daniel Ricciardo,” he added. “Now they want to ‘kill’ Sebastian because the German is not able to give another image of Red Bull. Of course, he cannot stand one more season.
“Helmut Marko has now also started to criticise him. When you lose control of the team and the policy begins to have an ever-increasing weight, you’re finished.”
Yet, Villeneuve’s most emphatic statement was yet to come. The former F1 champ says Vettel must leave Red Bull Racing.
“Vettel is finished there, he needs to change team.”
According to Villeneuve Ferrari would be Vettel’s most likely destination, claiming Alonso will be tired of carrying the team on his own, while Raikkonen lacks the finesse to drive a modern F1 car.
These comments from Villeneuve, made early last week, may well be chasing headlines, but what a headline!
[Source: RichlandF1 | Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
The next race on the 2014 F1 calendar is the Austrian Grand Prix (22 June). It sees a return to the old A1-Ring site, which last hosted an F1 event in 2003. The track has since been bought and redeveloped by Red Bull and now it’s pretty much a giant advertising theme park.
Giving us a brief overview of the new 4.3km Red Bull Ring layout are Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo in this very slick animation. Really, the graphics are first class.
In addition to the video animation Red Bull has provided three wallpaper images. All of which you can see after the break.
While we’re still in the afterglow of Daniel Ricciardo’s maiden grand prix win it’s timely to compare the immediate in-car reaction of Daniel with Mark Webber after his first F1 victory (see video after the break).
The circumstances leading to the wins for each is vastly different, in the paths their careers have taken and the circumstances in which those first wins took place.
For Mark his career was a hard graft and his win in at the 2009 German Grand Prix was in the bag a long time before the chequered flag.
In contrast, Daniel’s win in Canada came by surprise, almost, and he’s enjoyed a much smoother path into F1. Daniel has also said he was not comfortable celebrating in the car too much until he knew that Felipe Massa and Sergio Perez were okay after their race-ending crash.
[Thanks to Aaron for the tip]
DAN IS THE MAN!
It’s always special when we can bring you a pictorial update of an Aussie winning a Formula 1 Grand Prix. It’s been a while between drinks, but let’s hope we see a lot more of young Daniel on the top step.