MOTORSPORT: Podium, but Ricciardo 'lonely'

Daniel Ricciardo has his first podium of the year, but Red Bull Racing is still much more than ‘a mile’ behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

As Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) took the chequered flag at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, 3.4 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), Ricciardo had just begun his final lap and finished 75.82 seconds behind Hamilton in third.

Qualifying indicated that Red Bull had more than halved the gap to the two leading makes, but the race told a brutal story that the Renault-powered team is a long way yet from being in the hunt as the development race stepped up, with all teams bringing major upgrades to the fifth round of the Formula 1 World Championship.

There was some real racing in Barcelona for a change, with Vettel getting a jump on Hamilton but the ascendancy later swinging the other way because of Mercedes’ better strategy which ultimately allowed the Brit to sweep by the German for a lead he never surrendered, although Vettel maintained pressure until the end.

Vettel leads Hamilton in the drivers’ championship by six points, with carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo up a place to fifth, but Mercedes is eight points clear of Ferrari on the constructors table.

The Spanish race also was notable for the Force India-Mercedes cars finishing fourth and fifth in the hands of Mexican Sergio Perez and Frenchman Esteban Ocon, Sauber’s first points of the season courtesy of German Pascal Wehrlein. And Spaniard Fernando Alonso’s brilliant qualifying of a McLaren-Honda in seventh, although championship points were soon out of the question after he was squeezed into a gravel trap in a chaotic start to the race.

Alonso wound up 12th – and once-so-mighty McLaren is now the only team without a point in the constructors’ championship – before jetting to the US to begin practice for the Indianapolis 500 on May 28, while Jenson Button will deputise for him at the Monaco GP.

Ricciardo’s podium came with more than a share of luck, as his teammate and last year’s Barcelona victor (at just 18), Max Verstappen, and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen were out within 1km of the start. Later Valtteri Bottas, the last-start winner who that pair blamed for their exits in Barcelona, retired with a power unit that not only blew up but caught fire.

So each of the top three teams only had one car running when it really mattered, and Ricciardo was in a very different – ie: slower – league than Hamilton and Vettel.

“I’m happy to be back on the podium, but actually the race was quite a lonely one,” Ricciardo said.

“I didn’t have any real battles and my race was more about trying to keep a rhythm and maintain concentration.

“I got a bit fortunate with Valtteri’s problem (after 38 of the 66 laps), which bumped me up to third.

“Today we will enjoy the podium, but tomorrow we need to understand how to further close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes.

“I want to take the positives from this weekend. We will keep working hard and chipping away.

“I don’t think it’s impossible to catch the leaders at some point, [but] maybe it will take a little longer than we had hoped – but we will get there.

“I think I got the maximum out of the car today and moving on to Monaco we will have a few more updates, which will hopefully give us another step.

“And at that track (where Ricciardo had pole position last year and probably would have won the race if not for Red Bull’s infamous tyre bungle) it’s fair to say anything can happen.”

Formula 1 World Championship driver standings after five of 20 rounds – 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Ferrari) 104 points; 2. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 98; 3. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Mercedes) 63; 4. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Ferrari) 49; 5. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 37; 6. Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Red Bull-Renault) 35; 7. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Force India-Mercedes) 34; 8. Esteban Ocon (France, Force India-Mercedes) 19; 9. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Williams-Mercedes) 18; 10. arlos Sainz Junior (Spain, Toro Rosso-Renault) 17; 11. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Renault) 14; 12. Romain Grosjean (France, Haas-Ferrari) 5; 13. Pascal Wehrlein (Germany, Sauber-Ferrari) 4; 14. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark, Haas-Mercedes) 4; 15. Daniil Kvyat (Russia, Toro Rosso-Renault) 4.

F1 constructor standings – 1. Mercedes 161 points; 2. Ferrari 153; 3. Red Bull-Renault 72; 4. Force India-Mercedes 53; 5. Toro Rosso-Renault 21; 6. Williams-Mercedes 18; 7. Renault 14; 8. Haas-Ferrari 9; 9. Sauber-Ferrari 4.
Carrera Cup champ off to a roaring start in Supercup
Australia’s Carrera Cup champion, 22-year-old Matt Campbell, made an excellent start to his Porsche Supercup season at the Spanish GP with a podium too.

Queenslander Campbell had pole position for both Supercup races and took third place in the second of them after a fifth place a day earlier.

He was content with his results, saying Supercup racing – in the latest version of Porsche’s 911 – was “incredibly close” and that “not everything ran as well as it could have”.

The next round is at the Monaco GP.
Power on the road to glory at Indianapolis
Fellow Queenslander Will Power made an excellent start to his May campaign at Indianapolis, winning the IndyCar round on the road course that includes a stretch of the superspeedway at The Brickyard.

It was the 2014 series champion’s first win of the year.

Power led 61 of 85 laps for his 30th victory in IndyCar, one more than Penske teammate Helio Castroneves and Indy legend Rick Mears, and came after his third pole position of the season.

In a Chevrolet-powered Dallara, Power beat Honda-powered New Zealander Scott Dixon by 5.2 seconds to repeat his 2015 win in the Indianapolis ‘Grand Prix’ after Brazilian Castroneves had been his main challenger until he found himself on the wrong tyres for the final stint.

Now Power’s attention turns to trying to be the first Aussie to win the Indy 500 – something he came within a car length of doing two years ago.

He is now up to fifth on the series points table with 145 – 46 behind the leader, his French teammate Simon Pagenaud, after a run of bad luck in the earlier races.

Dixon trails Pagenaud by 10 points, with Penske’s American driver Josef Newgarden third on 152 and Castroneves fourth on 149.