There’s been no shortage of pundits ready to lay the boot into Daniel Ricciardo after a difficult couple of weeks at McLaren.
The Aussie’s optimistic start to the season came crashing down dramatically in the last fortnight of racing. A car problem dropped him out of the top 10 at the Spanish Grand Prix, while a confounding qualifying session on Monte Carlo ultimately confined him to 13th at the flag.
But Ricciardo protested in Monte Carlo that his skin is thick and that he won’t go down without a fight against his battles with the car, and his team principal, Andreas Seidl, says he remains equally committed to 32-year-old at both sides attempt to extract the best from one another.
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McLaren’s also weighed into a fight focused further up the field, with the battle over the budget cap continuing among the glitz and glamour of Monaco.
FEA: RICCIARDO REVEALS MEANING BEHIND HELMET STICKER
Eagle-eyed viewers of the Monaco Grand Prix broadcast might have spotted three letters scrawled on the back of Daniel Ricciardo’s helmet as he charged around the principality.
FEA — or f*** em all.
It hasn’t been an easy month for Ricciardo. Not only has he been unable to score at any of the three May grands prix, but he’s been on the receiving end of some pointed commentary from McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who told the media the team-driver relationship wasn’t delivering on expectations before making some cryptic remarks about exit clauses in the Australian’s contract.
But Ricciardo says his curt helmet message wasn’t directed at particular person or situation but rather was a self-motivation strategy designed to fire him up and out of a form trough.
“I put it on my [Red Bull Racing] helmet in 2018 as well,” he said.
“I like to use acronyms to pump me up. It’s honestly not directed at anyone; it’s something that I’ve said for a few years, and it just kind of gets me in my happy place.
“I think as well, as a driver, you put the helmet on and that’s also very significant of flipping the switch. It’s one of the last things I’ll see when I put the helmet on.
“So it reminds me to channel in and get into the zone.”
Ricciardo is spending time in the McLaren simulator ahead of next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in an attempt to break his slump and close the gap to Lando Norris, having been closer the Briton in the first two months of the season.
FERRARI DETAILS REASONS BEHIND MONACO BLUNDER
Ferrari has completed its review into the self-inflicted butchering of its front-row lockout at the Monaco Grand Prix and confirmed what was already clear during the race: it was completely to blame for its own mishandling of the situation.
Over the course of six laps Ferrari dropped pole-getter Leclerc from first to fourth over his two pits stops, which began with a misjudgement of Sergio Perez’s speed on fresh tyres.
“At the start of his in-lap, Charles had over 10 seconds advantage on Perez,” said head strategist Inaki Rueda. “We had looked at other people, we had the live data from the cars, and we though that this gap would shrink from around 10 seconds to maybe five, four, three seconds at worst.
“As we were coming in we saw the 10 seconds gap shrinking — seven, six, five, four — as Charles was coming through the Swimming Pool. The last timing reference we had indicated that he would come out one second ahead of Perez.
“What we did not expect was Perez to go nine seconds faster overall on that lap. Because of this, we lost the race with Charles.
The team made fundamentally the same mistake a second time, but this time by miscalculating Leclerc’s own strong pace.
“We wanted to pit both cars onto dry tyres … as we were coming in we were looking at our tools and our gaps. The gap in between our cars was five seconds. It was tight for a doppio (double stop).
“As the cars got closer and closer to pit entry the gap was narrowed, and at the pit entry the gap was only three and a half seconds. We made a last-second attempt to try and tell Charles to stay out, but it was too late. He had already veered into the pit lane.
“In this doppio Charles lost two seconds … this is what allowed (Max) Verstappen to come out ahead of Charles a lap later.”
The team also admitted Carlos Sainz had a shot at victory with a better executed strategy.
“We judged that the track could be quickest on dry tyres, and Carlos was the first car on the lead path to stop for dry, Rueda said. “This gave him a definite advantage.
“Unfortunately he came out behind (Nicholas) Latifi, and this cost him over three seconds. Had he not been blocked by Latifi, we are quite confident he would have won the race.
“We come away from Monaco with a bittersweet taste in our mouth. We did some very good things, but we did some other things we’re not so proud of.
“We come back to the factory, we analyse what we did right, what we did wrong, we update our tools. our procedures, and we make sure we come back stronger from this experience.”
The result dropped Leclerc nine points and Sainz 42 points behind Verstappen in the drivers standings, while Ferrari slipped to 36 points behind Red Bull Racing on the constructors table.
SEB VETTEL SAYS LEAVE MICK ALONE
The 2022 season to date hasn’t been kind to Mick Schumacher.
On the one hand he’s in his second season of Formula 1, free of his abrasive former teammate Nikita Mazepin and driving a substantially quicker car.
But on the other he’s still yet to score a point in his F1 career, he’s been thoroughly outclassed by new teammate Kevin Magnussen and he’s developing a reputation as a car wrecker.
Having already written off a car in a big smash during qualifying in Saudi Arabia — Haas withdrew him from the race to protect its dwindling spares stockpile — he suffered another massive smash in Monaco. He ran slightly wide through Swimming Pool and onto a damp patch of track, sending him spinning out of control and into the barriers with enough force to split his car in two.
Thankfully he emerged physically unscathed, but his reputation wasn’t so fortunate, and team boss Guenther Steiner’s patience is clearly wearing thin.
“With Mick we obviously saw what happened,” said Steiner. “It’s not very satisfactory having a big crash again. We need to see how we move forward from here.”
But compatriot Sebastian Vettel, who’s taken on the role of racing mentor in a paternal-like relationship with Mick, has told the sophomore’s critics to bite their tongue and cut some slack.
“It’s so easy to get it wrong so quickly,” Vettel said.
“I don’t know exactly what happened to him, I haven’t seen it, but the main thing is he’s okay.
“I think there’s no doubt he’s capable of doing a lot more than what he’s showing at the minute, but I think you guys need to give him a bit of a break.”
The more optimistic might point out that Schumacher’s junior racing campaigns took off only once he got his first wins, after which success came more easily to the German. If that’s to be the case in Formula 1, he urgently needs to score his first points to get his career rolling at long last.
RICCIARDO BEING ‘DESTROYED’ BY NORRIS, BUT McLAREN STAYS COMMITTED
Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan has put the torch to Daniel Ricciardo, saying he’s getting “destroyed” by Lando Norris at McLaren.
Ricciardo’s woes at the British outfit are well documented, with 2022 proving to be yet another difficult year for the Australian.
McLaren’s latest challenger is still seemingly at odds with the driving style of Ricciardo, who has only finished inside the points once in seven races.
Norris, meanwhile, has excelled, picking up points at five races to sit on 48 compared to Ricciardo’s 11.
“He’s letting races flow by, and you very seldom get a chance to claw this back,” former team boss Jordan told Channel 4.
“I think I’d be watching his career path from now on because I’m not sure how much further he can go. Lando is destroying him, mentally, physically and on the track.
“And when you have that kind of a scenario inside of a team, it gets to you. So, he needs to shake it up immediately.”
McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl came to Ricciardo’s defence after finishing 13th at the Monaco Grand Prix, pointing to difficulties in the car and technical problems as the reasons behind his rough last two races after his season appeared to start more promisingly.
“In general, Daniel says it himself, he still doesn‘t feel 100 per cent with the car, especially when it’s about pushing it to the absolute limit in qualifying,” Seidl said. “He‘s up against a very strong teammate as well, with Lando, and if you put both things together, that’s the gap we are sometimes seeing.
“Barcelona, in the race, it was simply not possible for Daniel to do a better pace [than 12th]. That‘s something we had to analyse after the race, which we did.
“We found an issue on the car which gave us an explanation, which was important, then we learned from that.”
The team also admitted to sending him out with too aggressive a set-up during second practice in Monaco, causing him to crash on his first flying lap.
“All we can do, together with Daniel, with a commitment on both sides, is to simply keep working hard in order to find these last percentages,” Seidl said.
RED BULL WARNS OF ‘ACCOUNTING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP’
F1 giants Red Bull Racing, Ferrari and Mercedes are ramping up the pressure on the FIA to act on the budget cap, which they say is too low in the face of rapidly rising inflation to cover the costs of the 22-race season.
The cap is set at US$140 million (A$195.2m) in 2022, but inflation is running at 9 per cent, with Europe close behind on 8.1 per cent.
The regulations currently allow for indexation when the G7 inflation rate hits 3 per cent. It’s currently at 6.1 per cent, automatically triggering this provision.
Christian Horner was the first to publicly voice his concerns during the Spanish Grand Prix, telling the BBC that his team’s budget shortfall amounted to the cost of the final four races, and he suggested up to seven teams were in the same boat.
In the lavish surrounds of the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto joined the chorus, imploring the governing body to intervene to prevent the teams from trying to game the system.
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“I think that there will be no way for us simply to stay below,” he said. “I‘m pretty sure that at some stage we will go over.
“In the regulations there is a threshold, which is a 5 per cent. If you do not exceed the 5 per cent on the top of what’s the budget cap threshold, it will be considered a minor breach.
“What’s a minor breach in case of force majeure? What will the stewards and the FIA decide on that in terms of penalties? No idea — but I don’t think there is any way for us and for many teams simply to stay within.”
Horner agreed, warning Sky Sports that “were going to end up with more people in our financial department than we have in the drawing office”.
“What we don‘t want to see is that Formula 1 becomes an accounting world championship rather than a technical or sporting one,” he said.
There’s a slim majority among the teams in support of an increase — McLaren and Aston Martin also agree with a boost in line with inflation, while AlphaTauri is owned by Red Bull — but three teams are staunchly against it: Alfa Romeo, Haas and Alpine.
Alpine has already insisted that it budgeted for rising inflation, and Haas boss Guenther Steiner argued the bigger teams were simply looking for a way to boost performance by increasing development expenditure.
Alfa Romeo Fred Vasseur had a simple message for Horner and his manufacturer-backed teams.
“If we have some increase on energy or freight, the best solution is to switch off the wind tunnel to stop bringing updates every single weekend,” he said. “We are in this situation and sooner or later we will have to stop the development of the car because we will be at the limit of our budget.
“I think everybody can do the same.”
VETTEL SLAMS ‘GREEN BULL’ CRITICISM
Sebastian Vettel has taken a swipe at those at Red Bull Racing who suggested the new-look Aston Martin car was designed with stolen data from Milton Keynes.
Aston Martin launched a dramatically revised AMR22 at the Spanish Grand Prix that bore striking similarity to the current-spec RB18.
In fact it looked so similar that the FIA on its own motion launched a detailed investigation into whether the team breached any of the sport’s anti-copying rules, which were introduced after the same team was found in breach of a grey area in the IP regulations in 2020.
The governing body found no evidence of wrongdoing, but Red Bull Racing undertook an internal investigation to find out whether any data was improperly downloaded and potentially taken with the seven staff who have recently switched teams to Silverstone, including former head of aerodynamics Dan Fallows, who is now Aston Martin’s technical director.
Both Christian Horner and Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Mark insinuated that IP had been stolen — Marko even said “there is evidence that data was downloaded” — but the team hasn’t been forthcoming about any potential revelations.
Speaking at the Monaco Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel, himself a former Red Bull Racing driver, took a veiled swipe at his former bosses.
“I think it was just at some point not fair,” he said. “First of all, all the effort that went in … second, I think on a personal level to Dan Fallows, I don‘t think it was fair.
“Some things that were said I think we’re not right. He’s a very good guy. I remember him from my time at Red Bull.
“Obviously, you know, he’s joined the team, he’s with us now, so I think some of the things that were said are just not right.
“I would like to hear, you know, not an apology — well, you will never hear anything, but what I mean is I think some of the things that were being said were just not fair.”
Aston Martin has scored just one point since introducing the upgrade thanks to Vettel’s 10th place in Monaco after a penalty to Esteban Ocon promoted him one place on the classification sheet.