HRT: Ricciardo leads D’Ambrosio home

2011 Korean GP team review

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Daniel Ricciardo beat one of the Virgin drivers for the second time this year.

Daniel RicciardoVitantonio Liuzzi
Qualifying position2423
Qualifying time comparison (None)No time
Race position1921
Laps54/5552/55
Pit stops23

HRT drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152535455
Daniel Ricciardo120.972112.056110.245110.674109.901109.579109.525109.575109.242109.096110.592109.606108.875108.974110.041127.243154.425120.241111.736144.511111.243108.415107.939108.316107.727107.864109.561108.265108.035106.872107.009106.902106.745106.451106.655106.436106.475106.327106.161106.412111.555123.786105.163107.815105.583105.937108.327107.214105.787105.58105.355105.01104.87105.076
Vitantonio Liuzzi135.393133.279111.147111.094110.725111.286110.116110.505109.802109.505111.734111.22114.199115.266110.852140.855146.186155.027153.215117.912109.14108.997108.537107.681107.891108.108109.546108.76108.36107.673107.382107.879108.131107.507107.101107.579108.277111.838128.217106.62112.182107.065109.463107.769106.173106.858106.842106.514108.709112.586108.738106.852

Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardio, HRT, Korea, 2011
Start tyreSoft
Pit stop 1Soft 23.196s
Pit stop 2Super soft 22.115s

Ricciardo didn’t set a qualifying lap due to technical problems but was allowed to start.

He got ahead of Jerome d’Ambrosio on the first lap and stayed there. But he regretted an ambitious move on Timo Glock after the safety car period:

“I went to attack Glock but it worked against me with D’Ambrosio getting past me. That made me work hard to get back past him again so, at least we split the two Virgins.”

The stewards deemed Ricciardo was released from his pit box in an unsafe fashion during the race, and fined his team ?óÔÇÜ?¼5,000 for the infringement.

This was the second time this year Ricciardo has finished in front of one of the Virgins. Liuzzi finished in front of both of them in Canada.

HRT are yet to announce which of the pair will be dropped to make way for Narain Karthikeyan in the next race.

Daniel Ricciardo 2011 form guide

Vitantonio Liuzzi

Start tyreSoft
Pit stop 1Soft 26.379s
Pit stop 2Soft 23.544s
Pit stop 3Super soft 22.092s

Liuzzi’s race was ruined on the first lap: “Heading into turn three there must have been some contact because there were pieces of carbon flying. I hit something with my front end and after that I had problems locking the front which caused my contact in turn four with one of the Virgins.”

The resulting pit stop left him over half a minute behind the rest of the field. That meant that when the safety car came out he was already a lap down and any chance of racing with the other cars was gone.

Vitantonio Liuzzi 2011 form guide

Narain Karthikeyan

Drove Liuzzi’s car in the wet first practice session. He said: “I had never driven in Korea before and having to do so in such foul weather conditions was not ideal.

“This won’t help me much with my preparation for the Indian Grand Prix, because it will surely be dry out there, but, nevertheless, it has been positive to be able to gather some data on wet conditions and I hope that helped the team out a little.”

2011 Korean Grand Prix

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    20 comments on “HRT: Ricciardo leads D’Ambrosio home”

    1. Why not mentioning that Narain was about 4 tenths of a second faster then Daniel in FP1? ;) On a track, which was new for both? ;)

      1. Because there are far too many unknowns to draw any meaningful conclusions from it: fuel load, state of the track, set-up etc…

        1. Btw. what is with the Korean D.O.D. poll?

          1. I don’t know what you mean.

            1. Voting for the korean driver of the race…

            2. The Driver of the Weekend poll always goes up after all the team reviews have gone up.

      2. Yet which was one was more familiar with the car?

        Ricciardo has shown impressive form in the few races he has had, Narain sadly has never shown any and as for Liuzzi… he has had his chances…

        I suspect however that the decision as to who gets to sit on the bench next race will depend on money… Will the Red Bull development team pay enough to keep Ricciardo in the HRT in India…

    2. Why do they even bother with Ricciardo in HRT anyway (besides the experience), he was also beating ALG & Buemi in Torro Rosso which is where he should be at the least, and would love to see him in Red Bull next to Vettel, since he beat his lap at Abu Dhabi last year.

      1. When did he beat Alguersuari and Buemi? Do you mean practice sessions? If so, you can’t really deduce much from that with regards to raw pace, give the huge amount of variables in any given session.

        Ricciardo did do well at the test but he was always going to benefit from a rubbered-in track under non-competitive conditions.

      2. Before you that would make sense drezone, you would have to intensively test all of these drivers in the same car and see what they give you. But you will still not be able to tell for sure which one of them to pick, as its just hard to tell.

        Red Bull will be closely following how Ricciardo does, but getting half a year of racing under his belt is miles better than any testing job he could be doing.
        You can’t just go dropping people for no good reason these theys, you know. And both STR drivers might not be superstars, but they are doing a pretty solid job at it.

    3. Ricciardo beat Buemi only once in Turkey (wet track)… And Buemi is the one who is doing worser in World Championship standings… So, don t know how you know that the Australian is better then both current drivers… There is NO evidence to support your theory… (Except the Red Bull and media P.R., off course…

      1. Again, I wouldn’t try to draw conclusions on the abilities of drivers based on a few laps in Friday practice. You complain about ‘media PR’ but what speaks loudest here is your own eagerness to diminish Ricciardo.

        1. And you are trying directly the opposite writing only what is suiting to your agenda… :) Best example is the hungarian GP, where you were loudly speaking about Ricciardo s excellent stint with times comparable to STR drivers, but you “randomly forgot” to mention an excellent stint of Alguersuari, when he was running comparable times to Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes on soft tyres… I think everyone has a right to write what he thinks or feels, off course without being vulgar or rude… The truth is I don t see Ricciardo being any superior to the current Toro Rosso drivers… And sorry, I don t see his beating of Liuzzi, who was released from STR after two seasons of worsening results and then being beaten comfortably by Adrian Sutil again, as an extraordinary achievement…

          1. I haven’t got an ‘agenda’ as far as supporting any driver or team goes.

          2. Has an HRT ever finished in front of a Virgin with a totally dry race?
            Given the advantage that Virgin have in qualifying, I would say that Ricciardo has done a solid job, can’t ask for much more from him at this stage.

    4. In response to “HRT are yet to announce which of the pair will be dropped to make way for Narain Karthikeyan in the next race.”, wasn’t it written directly into Ricciardo’s HRT contract that he would move out the way for Narain? He’s said recently that he’s giving his seat up for Karthikeyan at his home race. Has the seat-swap rule changed since Silverstone?

      1. @Toby

        He’s said recently that he’s giving his seat up for Karthikeyan at his home race.

        I’ve not seen that quote, got a link?

        I have asked HRT several times over the past few weeks and each time they’ve said there’s no decision yet.

        1. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ricciardo-happy-to-make-way-for-karthikeyan-in-indian-gp/854343/

          Seems to suggest there’s a deal in place, but it’s somewhat vaguer than i remembered(!)

    5. Liuzzi should make way for Karthikeyan.

    6. Aside from Canada which was a crazy race, has Liuzzi ever ‘challenged Glock’ or beaten D’Ambrosio on a dry track?

      I haven’t looked at the laptime history but it seems to me like Ricciardo is proving himself further at every race.

    Comments are closed.