Daniel Ricciardo is back to being the old fresh, fun and happy honey badger.
Of course Lewis Hamilton’s pole position yesterday afternoon was very special, but it was certainly not the biggest surprise of qualifying for the 2023 Hungarian GP.
No, that was Daniel Ricciardo. In practice he was always slower than his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, but Daniel managed to reach Q2 and Yuki did not. In the end Ricciardo starts from 13th place, while Yuki has to start from P17. Nyck de Vries’ replacement is off to a flying start.
Ricciardo the Elder
With this we seem to be able to conclude that Ricciardo is completely back to his old self. He confirms this himself Motorsport:
Of course I knew there would be a steep learning curve. I tried not to worry about how I’m doing this weekend. But of course I am a racing driver, so I always expect something from myself. But to be honest, I tried to take my mind off things as much as possible to make sure I could be myself again. And you know, jumping in the car and qualifying, I felt relaxed. I was really happy to be back to push again. I haven’t been able to do that for the past 2 years.
Daniel Ricciardo, is already better than Nyck de Vries.
Look, that might be the best news of the past weekend, regardless of the result. Daniel Ricciardo can push the limits again! So he couldn’t do that for two years. That is also very good news for us motorsport fans, because there are few drivers who can brake at the limit as well as Daniel Ricciardo.
It is also important that it is faster than Tsunoda when it matters most. It gives you a flying start anyway.
Hard points?
But will Daniel Ricciardo also finish in the points this afternoon with the AlphaTauri? He is very modest and realistic about that.
I have now only done one long run of eight rounds. So I think I’m going to learn a lot during the race about the tire wear and what the car is like with fuel on board. As the tires degrade I will learn more about how the car performs in these conditions. The weaknesses.
Daniel Ricciardo, also faster than Yuki Tsunoda.
After two difficult seasons at McLaren, it seemed that Daniel Ricciardo couldn’t do anything anymore. He was very often lost by Lando Norris and often performed sub-optimally with his McLaren. Remarkably, he won the Italian GP at Monza, but that was one of those races where everything fell into place and overtaking was next to impossible. At Red Bull they found a ‘broken’ man.
But they had faith in the Australian and brought him into the Red Bull family. After a few months in the simulator, he was allowed to test drive at Silverstone. That he was so good that after 11 laps Nyck de Vries got the call from Helmut Marko to update his Monsterboard profile.
So, now it’s your turn, dear reader! What do you think Daniel Ricciardo will accomplish? Will he get a point in his first race? Or is it mainly the upgrades and de Vries could hardly have performed differently? Let us know in the comments.
This article Daniel Ricciardo is back to normal, isn’t it? appeared first on Autoblog.nl.
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