MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo’s red letter day

Formula 1 needed some excitement – and Daniel Ricciardo provided it, in spades.

Ricciardo picked off five top rivals in the second half of the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai with brilliant overtaking, especially the decisive final move on the Mercedes-AMG of Valtteri Bottas that was to give the carsales.com.au global ambassador his sixth F1 victory.

“I don’t seem to win boring races. They are all pretty fun, but that was unexpected,” Ricciardo said.

On his overtaking of, in order, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, Mercedes’ world champion Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel and then the helpless Bottas, the 28-year-old Australian said: “Sometimes you have just got to lick the stamp and send it.”

Ricciardo has ramped his value in next year’s driver market and now can virtually name his price (certainly US$25 million plus) for a drive with Ferrari, Mercedes or to stay at Red Bull.

The cards fell his way in Shanghai when Red Bull junior team Toro Rosso’s drivers, Frenchman youngster Pierre Gasly and New Zealander Brendon Hartley, collided and a safety car intervened (somewhat belatedly) so debris could be cleared from the track.

While Mercedes and Ferrari kept their cars circulating, Red Bull pitted both its drivers for fresh soft tyres.

Verstappen was in the box seat to win but he ran wide trying to overtake Hamilton and later collided with Vettel, blowing his chances and incurring a 10sec post-race penalty that dropped him to fifth.

Instead it was Ricciardo who reiterated that he is the more polished racer at Red Bull and proceeded to do the business. Followed, of course, by a ‘shoey’ – drinking champagne from one of his boots…

The win came after Ricciardo barely made the start of qualifying on Saturday after an engine failure in final practice.

“We really thought we were going to start the race from the back [if he couldn’t qualify his car]. Just over 24 hours later, to be here now... This sport’s crazy,” carsales’ man stated.

“The team were rewarded for getting out in qualy, but this is the best reward.

“Once I was aware we had the pace [because of the soft rubber, against the older medium tyres on the Mercedes and Ferraris] I wasn't going to let it slip,” Ricciardo said.

"We had wicked pace. I could feel the tyres were holding on well. I was obviously fully set on the win. Every win I’ve had has been in a similar circumstance [overtaking in the closing laps]. It was a lot of fun … Awesome.

“We had the soft tyres, so I knew I could get more out of the braking than them [the drivers ahead of him after the safety car intervention].

“It was close [with Bottas], it was hard but fair. But I saw him defend, so I wanted to go shallower, but he came a bit more.
“I thought about pulling out [of the passing move]… No, I’m just kidding… I knew there would be enough room,” Ricciardo enthused.

This was the Ricciardo who a week earlier retired with an electrical failure just two laps into the Bahrain race – his fourth retirement in six races, four of them at the end of last season.

“Sometimes I questioned why I chose this sport because there are so many other things outside your control,” he said.

“It does get you down a lot, but when you have a day like this it’s worth 50 of those bad ones.”

Ricciardo had admitted on Saturday that “the window of optimism [in the Red Bull-Renault package] reduces over time” and, even after this success, he must be salivating at the prospect of driving a Ferrari or Mercedes next season.

The downside for his ever-growing army of fans of such a switch could be that he’d be leading races more often without the need for his trademark overtaking. All six of his wins have been scored from grid positions outside the top three.

For the first time in the 1.6-litre V6 hybrid era that began in 2014, Mercedes has gone three races without a win and has now won only one of the past six GPs.

However, Hamilton (fourth in Shanghai despite feeling he was “in no man’s land”) is now only nine points behind (54-45) Vettel, who won the first two processional races in Melbourne and Bahrain but wound up eighth in Shanghai. The German had started on pole position with teammate Kimmi Raikkonen alongside.

Shanghai runner-up Bottas is five points behind his Mercedes teammate, while Ricciardo is now fourth on 37 points and the Aussie’s teammate Max Verstappen eighth on 18.

Red Bull love child Verstappen was mildly rebuked by the energy drink company’s powerful motorsport consultant Helmut Marko last night.

“He just shouldn’t overdo it. He knows what he lost. There was a victory for him on the table, but he gave it away,” Marko said.

Raikkonen (who made the podium in China despite Ferrari’s tactics working against him), McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, seventh in Shanghai, and the Renault factory team’s Nico Hulkenberg, sixth yesterday, stand between the Red Bull pair on the points table.

Mercedes now has a one-point lead (85-84) over Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, with Red Bull third on 55.

Next up, on April 29, is the Azerbaijan GP in Baku, where none other than our man Dan scored an unlikely victory last year.