MOTORSPORT: Tough times for Ricciardo just get harder

It was frustration again for Daniel Ricciardo in the first European grand prix of the year, the wrong tyre strategy costing him world championship points as Renault dropped to eighth of the 10 teams in the constructor standings.

Mercedes scored its fifth one-two finish in five races this season, with Lewis Hamilton winning in Spain for the third straight year after being massively outgunned by teammate Valterri Bottas in qualifying, while Honda-powered Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is now overshadowing continually-disappointing Ferrari.

The World Rally Championship is far more interesting. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville rolled seven times on the eighth stage of the new Rally Chile and his exit cost him the series lead, but he and Toyota’s Ott Tanak and Citroen’s Sebastien Ogier have each won twice in the six rounds so far. And Sebastien Loeb was on the podium in Chile for the first time with Hyundai.

Toyota also has had two wins in the two rounds of the Australian Rally Championship, with Harry Bates unbeatable in both heats of the new one-day format for the National Capital Rally in Canberra in a Yaris AP4. His younger brother Harry rolled his Yaris and couldn’t take part in the second heat, while Subaru’s Molly Taylor was runner-up in both.

It’s May and Team Penske is winning at Indianapolis – and in NASCAR at Kansas. Roger Penske’s Chevrolet-powered Dallaras traditionally dominate the IndyCar Grand Prix on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and this time Simon Pagenaud equalled Australian teammate Will Power’s three wins in the six years of the race, although the Frenchman’s first success in it in 2014 was with Schmidt Motorsports before he joined Penske.

Attention at The Brickyard now turns to the Indy 500, with qualifying next weekend and Power defending last year’s historic triumph on May 26 as Team Penske seeks to extend its record 17 victories in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Power finished seventh in Saturday’s mainly wet road-course race and is sixth in the IndyCar championship, 63 points behind American teammate Josef Newgarden.

“We were reasonable in the wet, but in the dry we just weren’t good,” Power said. “Then I made a mistake. It was just a rough day.”

New Zealander Scott Dixon was runner-up for the third straight year but the defending series champion is just six points behind Newgarden ahead of the double-points 500.

Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski scored his third win of NASCAR’s Cup season in a Penske Ford Mustang at Kansas, with Alex Bowman runner-up for the third race in a row in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

While the F1 race in Barcelona had little overtaking, as usual there, and the top three drivers after a few hundred metres filled the podium, there were 23 lead changes in Kansas among 12 drivers.

The Formula E electric open-wheeler championship’s record of a different winner at every round this season ended with reigning champion Jean-Eric Verge scoring his second victory at the ninth round on the streets of Monaco.

The French former Red Bull junior squad F1 driver now leads his teammate in the Chinese-owned DS Techeetah, German Andre Lotterer, by one point, while Brazilian veteran Felipe Massa was on the podium in Formula E for the first time with the Monaco-based Venturi team although behind Nissan e.dams’ British driver Oliver Rowland.

New Zealander Mitch Evans, the winner in Rome recently, copped a 10-place grid penalty in Monaco after his third reprimand of the season, denying him a front-row start, but he still finished seventh for Jaguar Racing.

‘We were certainly quicker than 12th’

Daniel Ricciardo says the switch to hard-compound tyres was the “game-changer” that prevented him finishing in the points for Renault at the Spanish GP.

“That lost us track position to Carlos [Sainz],” Ricciardo said of his duel with the Spaniard in a McLaren with a Renault power unit.

“We fitted hard [tyres], he fitted medium and he got me on that out lap ... he got me very easily.

“Without that I think we could have been further up.

“I think we might have been carrying a bit too much drag or something too.”

The carsales.com.au global ambassador finished 12th, while Sainz was eighth, maintaining his record of scoring points in his home race in all his five years in F1.

“Kind of frustrated to see him eighth, when at one point we were in front of him,” Ricciardo said.

“We were certainly quicker than 12th today.

“The midfield is so close and everything has to be executed to the maximum for a strong result.”

Ricciardo had qualified a pleasing 10th but had a three-place grid penalty from the Azerbaijan GP two weeks earlier. Teammate Nico Hulkenberg started from the pitlane after a mistake and damage to his RS19 in qualifying. He finished 13th, on Ricciardo’s tail.

Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul said the team could have been in the points in Barcelona but, with just one seventh place by each of its cars after five races, “we are not in line with the targets we set ourselves”.

While Mercedes is way ahead in the constructors’ championship on 217 points to Ferrari’s 121 and Red Bull’s 87, McLaren (22), Racing Point (17), Haas (15) and Alfa Romeo Sauber (13) also are ahead of Renault (12), with only Toro Rosso (six) and Williams (0) behind.

The teams are remaining in Barcelona for two days of testing, with Hulkenberg taking part for Renault but Ricciardo not. The pair are equal 12th in the drivers’ championship with six points apiece, while Hamilton has 112, Bottas 105, and Verstappen 66.

Ferrari is another team underperforming. Not only was it left trailing by Mercedes all weekend in Barcelona but Red Bull’s Verstappen, who has finished in front of at least one of the Ferraris at every GP this year, was ahead of both the scuderia’s cars last night for his and Honda’s second podium of the year.

Sebastien Vettel flat-spotted a tyre at the first corner and the resultant early pitstop committed him to a two-stop strategy and he finished fourth. Charles Leclerc went to the hard tyres at his first stop, hoping to get to the end on them, but had to pit again.

Twice Ferrari switched the order of its drivers on the track but to no avail and Vettel slipped to fourth in the championship on 64 points while Leclerc has 57.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said its engine and aerodynamic updates for Spain had been pleasing but not enough.

“This was yet another race that ended well below our expectations,” Binotto said. “We have a lot to do, but we are not losing heart.”

Had Fiat-Chrysler and Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne not died suddenly last July, the jobs of the men running the Maranello team might well have been lost by now.

While Toyota’s Ott Tanak won the new Rally Chile in a Yaris, the world rally champion of the past six years, Sebastien Ogier, is now leading the WRC by 10 points.

Back with Citroen after his titles with Volkswagen and M-Sport Ford, Frenchman Ogier has 122 points to Estonian Tanak’s 112, with Hyundai’s Belgian Thierry stuck on 110 because of his big crash and dropping to third.

However, Hyundai still has a handy lead in the manufacturer standings with 178 points to Toyota’s 149, Citroen’s 143 and M-Sport Ford’s 100.

Sebastien Loeb, winner of 79 WRC rounds and a record nine world titles but now competing only part-time, raced a Hyundai i20 on gravel for the first time in Chile and got within 1.1 seconds of Ogier on the final day before his younger countryman stretched the gap again in his C3.

The 45-year-old Loeb said it had been an “enjoyable and productive event”.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so comfortable inside a car that I can be in the game,” he said.

Neuville and his co-driver, Nicolas Gilsoul, were not seriously injured in Saturday’s barrel-rolling and are expected to compete in Portugal on May 30-June 2.

Neuville said his pace notes had been “obviously too optimistic” but that the i20 “did its job of absorbing the heavy impacts”.