MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo's new dawn against the odds

Ferrari may be set to dethrone Mercedes, but it’s a long, hard road ahead for Renault and carsales’ Dan Ricciardo.

Mercedes-AMG has dominated the era of V6 hybrid power units in Formula 1, yet Ferrari has won the season-opener in Melbourne the past two years.

If pre-season testing is a guide (many say it’s not really, that only practice and then qualifying on Friday and Saturday this week will be an indicator) might Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel complete a hat-trick in Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix?

And, after another 20 GPs over the next 8½ months, might the Prancing Horse finally topple the Silver Arrows in the world championship?

Only three teams have been winners in the 100 races over the past five years of these hybrids – Mercedes, an astonishing 74 times, Ferrari 14 and Red Bull Racing (RBR) 12.

Seven of RBR’s victories came courtesy of Australian Daniel Ricciardo, but for this season carsales’ global ambassador has moved to Renault’s factory team.

RBR has given up Renault power for Honda, a unit that failed miserably in McLaren cars for three seasons but showed promise in the back of those of Red Bull’s secondary team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, last year.

Ricciardo’s move seems to be one step back but with the potential to go two steps forward.

RBR could not get him to the world title he craves in five years and Mercedes and Ferrari did not have openings, despite him being a better option than Ferrari’s choice, 21 year old Charles Leclerc, or Valtteri Bottas (five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton’s sidekick at Mercedes).

So Ricciardo opted for the French team that has been to the summit before, was fourth in the pecking order last year and, more than any other, has upped its investment -- especially in engineering talent.

Renault last won as a factory team more than a decade ago (with Fernando Alonso), although the team that ran as Lotus won with Kimi Raikkonen in 2012 (the famous ‘Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing’ race) and then in Melbourne at the start of 2013.

That was before the hybrids were introduced. It was only for the 2016 season that Renault purchased what had been Lotus, becoming a fully-fledged constructor as well as supplying RBR and, from last year, McLaren.

Now RBR has hooked up with Honda and, while there is always plenty of optimism from the energy drink outfit about its prospects, there is no certainty it is going to be any better off.

Some of the experts at pre-season testing in Spain reckoned RBR may even be ahead of Mercedes, but the timesheets did not reflect that. Far from it.

RBR very much has put its faith in Max Verstappen (a five-time GP winner and still only 21) becoming F1’s youngest world champion and has promoted Pierre Gasly from Toro Rosso as Ricciardo’s replacement.

Ricciardo is feeling a new sense of belonging at Renault and the team is looking to him, in particular to take it forward.

First it needs podiums, something Dan’s German teammate Nico Hulkenberg (who has been at Renault two seasons already) hasn’t yet tasted. Then it needs to rediscover how to win, something at which Ricciardo has experience, albeit with chassis designed by the genius Adrian Newey.

Renault is hoping to be a title contender again in 2021. It will need to re-sign Ricciardo again for that campaign because he’s gone there on a two-year deal.

It must come up with equipment capable of giving him a genuine, rather than just hopeful, shot at the world title by then.

If not, the door at Maranello may open to the Aussie of Italian heritage – as long as he continues to display the racecraft (especially the brilliant overtaking) for which he is now famous; and either Vettel has run his race or Leclerc has flopped, or both.

Ferrari already has raised its commitment under new team principal, Mattia Binotto, who brings more leadership and passion to the position than ousted Maurizio Arrivabene. Binotto has compared his role to that of an orchestra conductor.

There should be major new rules for the cars, especially the engines, by 2021 (the framing of them is already months behind schedule) but for this season the changes are mainly aerodynamic, with the front and rear wings wider, higher and simpler, and the barge boards smaller and further forward.

Pirelli has five new tyre compounds too (Lewis Hamilton, for one, doesn’t like them) and cars are allowed a little more fuel (110kg up from 105). And there’s now an extra point for the driver setting the fastest lap in each GP, although history shows it would rarely have affected the outcome of previous world championships.

What hasn’t yet changed substantially since 2014 is the noise level of the hybrids. The demonstration runs by the 20-year-old two-seater Minardi at Melbourne’s Albert Park are the only moments that sound truly F1.

Ricciardo inevitably will become much better acquainted with racing in the midfield until Renault can challenge the top teams.

American-owned, Ferrari-powered Haas has made a great fist of F1 in just three years and, with a stable and experienced driver line-up, is much better placed than two of the powerhouses of yesteryear, McLaren and Williams. Both of those have British rookie drivers, Lando Norris and George Russell respectively, teamed with Carlos Sainz Junior, discarded by Red Bull from Toro Rosso, and the returning Robert Kubica -- a GP winner more than a decade ago whose career looked to have been finished by injuries from a rally crash.

Racing Point, the former Force India, is now owned by a syndicate led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll and has his son, Lance, ex-Williams, in one cockpit. Like Ricciardo, it may take a little time to consolidate in its new guise before advancing again.

Sauber, already reborn from the depths of a couple of years ago, is now Alfa Romeo and effectively a Ferrari satellite team -- although seemingly still with fabulously wealthy but invisible Scandinavian owners and Kimi Raikkonen paired with an Italian, Antonio Giovinazzi, who did the first couple of GPs of 2017.

And then there’s Toro Rosso, with a year’s ‘jump’ on RBR with the Honda engine and faster pre-season times but a recycled Russian Daniil Kyvat and British-based Thai new boy, Alex Albon.

The focus, as always, will be at the front of the field – and in how close our Dan is to it in his new yellow and black and sporting a new helmet design with a particular Australian flavour.

The F1 field hits the track for the first time in the 2019 World Championship season at midday, Friday, March 15 at Albert Park. Racing starts with support classes on Thursday.