“I want to go up against Lewis” – Ricciardo

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Daniel Ricciardo says he wants the change to compete against Lewis Hamilton.

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Comment of the day

McLaren’s latest deal is good news for the rest of F1, reckons Tristan.

Any team getting a Dell sponsorship would be a huge and long overdue step in the right direction for the sport. I’m really hoping now that Ecclestone is gone and there’s been the move into America; bridges can be built with the tech industry.

There are so many opportunities for shared investment and the branding that comes along with that. I really believe that road relevance for technology investment will be replaced with computing relevance. If it’s not the Intel, AMD, Microsoft or Amazon’s of the world that will be pushing F1 forward in the far future as much as Ferrari and Mercedes, I really do wonder if there will be an F1 at all. It’s already a game where the teams with the biggest/best compute with regards to CFD/strategy are coming out on top.

I still imagine putting on some glasses and feeling as though I’m at the race watching live, if not in the drivers seat on a hot-lap and the absolute thrill to the senses that will provide. Looking at where we were only 20 years ago, I really don’t think it’s impossible. I’d be amazed if there’s not at least a few people on the inside of both tech and racing that’d be thinking the same.
Tristan

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Nyck de Vries, Racing Engineering, Formula Two, 2017
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54 comments on ““I want to go up against Lewis” – Ricciardo”

  1. Reading between the lines: “I would like to go alongside Lewis at some point” ….in equal machinery!
    Ricciardo looks to be setting his stall for contract negations, be that with Red Bull or Merc

    1. Ricciardo needs to be more concerned about dealing with Max, rather than Lewis. He really has to outperform Verstappen, in order to be given any consideration by Mercedes, and I don’t think that will happen.

      1. Mercedes doesn’t need or want anyone other than a famous driver. As for Daniel he’s just saying what everyone said of Vettel. The championship is won by the best car.

        1. Still, Ricciardo beat Vettel quite comprehensively. Even if he didn’t get a title for it that season, it must be gratifying.

      2. If he stays close to Verstapen he will still be considered one of the best options for any team in the grid.

      3. @samouri I wouldn’t begin to guess who Mercedes wants (they at least know at this point who their potentials are) but I sure hope it is a top guy, not a newbie. A real challenger. We need a rivalry there. Sorry VB but I don’t think you’re it. Hope I’m wrong, but I think you’ll only have this one more year with which you will at least raise your stock in the market.

        I don’t know if they want DR, but only if he beats Max, or even if he doesn’t. Frankly I agree with you and I don’t expect him to beat Max this season either. I also think he’d have a tough go against LH, as anybody new to the team would. That’s not to say he wouldn’t fit there.

        In DR’s interview he says his year against SV raised him confidence-wise. I do wonder how he feels after last season, although at least he has the higher points tally to remind himself of. I envision him doing a ‘Nico’ this off-season, sweating all the details as to how he’s going to possibly reverse those racing numbers he lagged behind Max last year. Young, rich, superstar Max.

        1. It will be interesting to see how Bottas develops this year @robbie. But you are certainly right that if he does not step up the team should pick up a better “number two” who can push Hamilton a bit more.

        2. Don’t you also need a real rivalry at Ferrari? Everybody wants to see Lewis paired with a tough teammate, which then tells me, that they view him as the best driver on the grid.

          1. @Kgn11, it seems that anything you read “tells (you), that they view him as the best driver on the grid.”

            ‘Lewis had a flat tyre tells me, that they view him as the best driver on the grid.’
            ‘Lewis danced at the Carnival tells me, that they view him as the best driver on the grid.’
            etc.

          2. @Egonovi

            Offer a constructive reply

          3. Kgn11 Well said. People always asking fot better teammates against Hamilton but never ask for better teammates for Alonso or Vettel, why with nonsense SMH.

          4. @NoName – Precisely and they do so under the disguise of, “we want to see more competition amongst teammates”. But yet they’re all so happy to see Seb & Alonso competitions against inferior teammates.

            The weakest teammate Lewis ever had was Heikki. I’m no Button fan I don’t really rate him as much as others do, but he was a WDC so deserves credit, but Lewis has been partnered with 3* (* for Rosberg as he didn’t defend his title), how many other WDC’s can say they’ve faced the same?

            Lewis has and his numbers stacks up pretty well against them, and that includes Alonso. But I’ll get the usual, “he didn’t beat Alonso” comments. 😏

          5. You’re being a little disingenuous there. Not sure how often you visit this site, but I can assure you under every ‘Ferrari/Kimi contract’ article a large amount of the comments are questioning why Ferrari have not gone for a more competitive driver.

          6. @Kgn11 Spoken like a die hard LH fan with blinders on. Even TW wanted a strong rivalry, a strong challenger for LH, having re-signed Nico for two more years… 2017 and 2018.

            Aside from top fans of his such as yourself, why would we want to see one driver from one team dominate unchallenged? You’ve even seen F1 itself make reg changes to try to upset those kinds of things happening numerous times in F1’s history, and yet you can sit there and claim this is only about LH.

            As @davef1 has pointed out there is a massive number of fans, I’d say the majority even, that also want to see SV challenged too. But your eyes don’t see that. Everything is somehow a slight against LH which you turn into an opportunity to make him sound so hard done by.

          7. Only with two drivers in the fastest car you can see who’s best on WDC level.
            All other fights only show the best in that specific team.

          8. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
            10th February 2018, 0:02

            To be fair to @Egonovi, @Kgn11 you never offer anything constructive yourself.

          9. Thanks @come-on-kubica.
            And ‘holding up a mirror’ is widely seen as constructive feedback; though the listener needs to be open to this.

    2. He is not going to Mercedes I don’t think. They have Ocon waiting in the wings and they also seem to be grooming Russell for the future so Ricciardo better look across to Verstappen and hope Redbull and Renault deliver. He is already in a big Team he might as well try and make it work for himself.

      1. If Ocon doesn’t beat Perez he can forget about Mercedes, other than buying himself an S-class.

    3. Let’s be hoonest, Ricciardo is a super driver, but he’s no longer wanted by any team but Red Bull, and even then RB prefer Verstappen to be their future star. Mercedes will look to pick up Verstappen once Lewis is gone, Ferrari same when Vettel is gone. These two men own those teams and neither would allow Verstappen to join as long as they are there. When a seat opens up there’s already younger and better on the horizon in Ocon, Sainz, LeClerc,…

    4. It seems to me this is a hint Ricciardo would like to drive for Mercedes. My recollection is Bottas’ contract expires at the end of this season, so I think Mercedes have played their cards in the hope of enticing Ricciardo to join them. Hamilton has publicly stated he isn’t fussed by who his team mate is, so there isn’t any obvious reason why Ricciardo’s desire doesn’t happen.
      I wouldn’t like to see him go to Ferrari unless it was a Number One driver, but Vettel isn’t going to accept that!

      1. Given the rapport shown between Dan and Toto, there is a chance he could get the seat.
        Will be interesting to see how the 18 car goes for both DR and MV. I still think over the distance there is not much between the 2 drivers.

  2. Hamilton is not going back to McLaren anytime soon. Not if he wants to get anywhere near 91 wins before he retires.

    1. Maybe he wants 91 wins in different series. McLaren is the right place for that

  3. 95% of male F1 fans live in countries where for every average F1 viewer there are 1,3/4 female viewers. Female viewers don’t like watching hot girls being the centre of attention next to their boyfriends saying they’re watching for the racing. Not only because of feminism. Some are just plain jealous. Just try watching any singing-contest with a girl or women under 50. So Sean was sitting there ”but how do we lure them?” ”Aha! (he said while imitating Toto’s banging the table) Grid Kids!” ”Brilliant! they’ll think they’re cute, lets go home, cancel that Chinese.” There, that is the vital commercial reason.

    About my previous statements yesterday;
    It seems as sources say Honda aimed at 950/970 HP at the start of this season and are already at ~930/940. That’s on form with their increase of 40 HP (yes this happened) from last season.
    Now that and the fact McLaren has no input in PU design in their contract with Renault as well as having to compromise on the chassis as well, I can’t wrap my head how McLaren could stay ahead of that if RBR was reported to be starting at around ~890/905 HP at the start of last season and only gained ~5/10 HP (all this is viewable with a search engine). Sometimes I hope I’m wrong too as people will never admit it when it turns out to be true but this sounds like madness if it’s true.
    Well and with that risky assessment I’m leaving tomorrow for the Olympics. See you in Barcelona.

    1. The Honda stuff does have to work on track too though, and last …

    2. what’s “1,3/4”?
      1(decimal)3 divide by 4
      1 to 3-quarters
      1 plus 3-quarters

      PS I stopped reading after the inappropriate sentence “Some are just plain jealous.”

      1. Egonovi, @xiasitlo probably meant “between 1.3-1.4” – in parts of continental Europe (notably Italy), commas are usually used for decimal places, and F1 gave a statistic during last year indicating they had slightly more women than men watching F1.

    3. I would change wife/girlfriend if I was you

    4. It seems as sources say Honda aimed at 950/970 HP at the start of this season and are already at ~930/940. That’s on form with their increase of 40 HP (yes this happened) from last season.

      @xiasitlo

      Honda claimed to have matched Mercedes’ 2016 power unit last season. They still had rubbish reliability and were nearly 100hp down.

      Honda need to set realistic goals. I would think matching Renualt’s 2017 PU is a start, plus managing to keep it to 5 power units over an entire season. I know the target is 3 for an entire season, but let’s be realistic, this is Honda we’re talking about.

      1. To be honest, I don’t only expect honda to not be able to use only 3 PU in 2018, but even renault, 3 is very little, I doubt their reliability will improve that much.

  4. Mclaren got what the wanted by employing a marketing guy like Brown. I wonder though, how much is it helping them?
    For a participant in a global sport like F1, reputation follows success. McLaren may end up going backwards with such visibility and even more failures.

    1. I was never optimistic when they ousted Ron and got Zak in, but to be honest Zak has done a decent job so far. The best he could in 2017 was damage limitation, which I think he did very well. He made the decision to get rid of Honda even before the season started, and he had to keep his star driver happy, which he did by letting him do Indy, etc.

      Zak isn’t a technical genius like Ron, which is slightly worrying for a team that was always at the sharp end of engineering and innovation, but he seems like a pragmatic leader to their team. I guess only time will tell where McLaren end up under his reign.

      1. @todfod I think that is well said.

      2. @todfod,
        I always thought there’s no alternative for on-grid success in Motorsports. But given McLaren’s situation, it is probably the best case scenario with Brown, as you explained.

        So yeah, let’s all hope for McLaren’s return to form soon, otherwise Brown can only do so much damage limitations.

      3. Yup, well said @todfod. If Zak finds the money, and manages to keep Alonso as well as the top engineers happy that they can do their thing, that can help them build a great package.

      4. Some of the reasons you state as an argument to the good job he is doing, are the same I would use to the contrary.

        I guess it will depend on the perspective

      5. From what I’ve seen over the years it seems to me it is easier for a marketing guy to run a tech company than an engineering guy. An engineering guy would always be tempted to micro manage certain aspects of the company instead of concentrating on their own job, whereas a marketing guy would know he doesn’t have the nouce to do that, but instead listens to those he’s employed to give him good advice.

        1. @drycrust,
          From my experience as an engineer, the marketing guys are also more adept at running a company aground.

  5. “I’ve certainly got a very good (team mate) alongside me in Max (Verstappen). I would like to go alongside Lewis at some point, irrespective of team situation, that would be fun.” – I’d like to see that as well.

    “It could go very well and at points we could also challenge Renault and Force India.”
    – If by ‘at points’ he’s referring to challenging Renault and Force India for Constructors’ Championship positions then I doubt it, and even if he’s referring to challenging them occasionally, I still have my doubts to some extent.

    1. I’d say targeting Force India should be a medium term goal. 2018 may be steep, but before the 2021 rules change occur they should be at their pace. If the budget is what it appears, then they should be able to overhaul Force India and become best of the rest. Catching Renault should not be on the table.

    2. By “at points”, I’m assuming he means that Sauber will challenge Renault and Force India on days when Sauber is at its strongest and when the opposing team/s have an off-day in terms of pace. That, at least, is plausible – for 2019. Unless Charles Leclerc is even better than I think he is, Toro Rosso and McLaren would be more realistic targets for 2018.

      1. Leclerc is what’s got me most excited for the new season as a Ferrari fan. How to measure his performance? Sauber will be by far the slowest as chassis was designed on previous budget so for me it’s how he does v Ericsson. If he averages over 0.5 seconds a lap better in qualifying and a minute infront in races would Ferrari risk him the following year? Highly unlikely scenario but what if?

  6. Who would have thought 6 years ago that a move from Mercedes to McLaren now would make even less sense than a move from McLaren to Mercedes made then?

    1. @philipgb The haters where happy and claimed that he would never be on the podium and win a race etc and Hamilton was bashed by the press. His departure was national news here in The Netherlands. Even Hamilton “fans” left him only to come back when Hamilton made it to the podium and winning in Hongary.

      1. @noname,
        I like when people call out “the haters”, …such a deep, meaningful word.
        I also love it when fanaticism goes nearly religious and eagerly proves a point almost nobody is/was actually challenging.

        1. @praxis

          Hamilton very much has his haters. This site’s comment section is relatively good for its lack of them but the BBC sites comments section or Jackie Stewart’s comments are decent examples that betray an anti Hamilton bias

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      9th February 2018, 13:11

      @philipgb Oh dude, that’s the comment of the month there! If you asked anyone back then if those 2 teams’ fortunes would shift so dramatically, I doubt anyone could have foreseen that or would have believed it. What’s even more ironic is that this is the golden age of McLaren except in F1 – the mighty might of McLaren is at its apex in design and manufacturing challenging the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche but they can’t compete in the sport that made them so famous.

      1. Speaking for myself I always thought, even when it was still rumours, that LH’s move to Mercedes was exactly what he needed to do. I thought there had developed some baggage at Mac by the time the move happened and I saw his move as healthy, like a youth leaving the nest. I also believed Brawn at the time who nailed it when he said where a driver would/should want to be for the next gen (this current one) was with a factory team.

      2. F1 teams are never successful when their road car division hits a purple patch. Just look at Ferrari with the laferrari, 458 and F12 and McLaren back in 94-97 with the F1.
        Even Lotus with the Esprit.

    3. I was one of the people who thought it was a good idea and there were plenty more. It wasn’t just gloom.

      Hamilton had a perfectly good explanation for why he choose Mercedes and it exactly happened as he predicted.

      Everybody said that the place to be was with a team based around an engine manfacturer. ie Ferrari or Mercedes. Mercedes was also ramping up their investments in an effort to fight for the WDC rather than remaining a mid field team. They were hiring key people everywhere, along with finally a top tier driver.

      Everything about Hamilton’s choice made sense to me back then.

      I hadn’t expected Ferrari to fail so miserably, but that teams like McLaren would struggle was reasonably obvious. Especially with Whitmarsh at the helm the team was clearly doomed.

  7. I really like Ricciardo but i think its not smart of him to be wishing to be Lewis’s teammate. He should really pick up pace and try to be close to VES this season and not let Redbull completely tilt towards VES. I personally would like to see him replace Laggy Laggard at Ferrari next year.

  8. It gives me mixed feelings when people say grid girls are exploitative, condescending or wrong. It gives me the impression that these people think that women doing these things is wrong. One of the youtube videos I saw about this (was by a woman) said really nicely that one the of the ideas of feminism is about women being able to do things while being safe from judgment. And that includes being safe from judgment coming from other women too. Feminism is not about women deciding what is suitable for women. It is about each woman having the power to make that decision for themselves.

    I really hope the people arguing for removal of grid girls are not really just trying to enforce definitions of what “good” women should not do and what bad women do. Is being a model bad? Should we not let women be models? If we really want equality then we need freedom for everybody to make that decisions for themselves. After all in the 70s and 80s it was not suitable for women to be mechanics.

    In the end sexuality sells and lots of women are totally fine with it. Go to twitch (a gaming streaming site) for example and you find lots and lots of attractive young female streamers basically just filming themselves. Before you pass judgment you need to ask yourself. Are you against that because you think women should not be doing that? Because it is exploitative, condescending or wrong? Is it?

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