First win and first Driver of the Weekend for Ricciardo

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

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When Mercedes faltered in Canada it was Daniel Ricciardo who took advantage to claim his first ever grand prix victory – and he was duly voted Driver of the Weekend.

Ricciardo has performed consistently well so far this year in the eyes of F1 Fanatic readers, appearing in the top three in the Driver of the Weekend polls in five of the seven races so far.

Taking 44.9% of the vote, Ricciardo polled twice as many votes as Nico Rosberg, who finished second in the voting as he did in the race, following his MGU-K failure.

Sergio Perez came third in the voting, despite being held responsible for a last-lap collision with Felipe Massa.

1. Daniel Ricciardo

Started: 6th
Finished: 1st

Heading into the Canadian Grand Prix weekend Red Bull team boss Christian Horner gave his team little chance, stating they’d be lucky to make the third row on the grid.

As it turned out, they were actually in a close battle with Williams for the two rows behind Mercedes, however while Sebastian Vettel pulled a stunning lap out for third, Ricciardo struggled with balance, and lined up sixth.

From the start he got stuck behind Massa so pitted early and jumped the Williams, then repeated the tactic at the second round of stops, jumping the other Williams of Valtteri Bottas and team mate Vettel.

As the Mercedes’ cars hit trouble up front Ricciardo found himself third in the train led by Nico Rosberg, separated from the race leader by Perez. With Red Bull’s lack of straight-line speed however Ricciardo struggled to pass the ailing Force India, but eventually pulled a well-judged move with five laps to go.

He quickly closed on Rosberg and used the advantage of being able to keep close in sectors one and two – something Perez couldn’t do – to gain DRS and enjoy the rare satisfaction of drafting past a Mercedes on a straight to claim his first ever win.

No particular driver stood out as having an especially competent or blemish free weekend, but when it counted it seemed like Dan was the only one to roll his sleeves up and take the prize with both hands. It almost felt like no one was going to score in an open goal on Sunday.
Tom (@Newdecade)

Stood up against Vettel (again) and didn’t miss the opportunity to overtake Perez and then Rosberg!
@Win7Golf

Ricciardo for mine. Made amends for his qualifying woes with a phenomenal last five laps.
Little_M_Lo (@Pezlo2013)

2. Nico Rosberg

Started: 1st
Finished: 2nd

Arriving at a venue where team mate Lewis Hamilton was expected to be strong, Rosberg captured pole position by less than a tenth of a second following a mistake by Hamilton in Q3 on his final lap.

Hamilton got away better from the start however, and so to keep his advantage Rosberg ran his team mate wide at turn one. Rosberg started to come under more pressure from Hamilton later in the race, and this led to two mistakes. He nearly put his car in the wall at turn four, and out-braked himself at the final chicane and cut the corner, setting the fastest lap as he did so.

He was handed a warning but the mistake was soon forgotten when both cars started to lap two seconds a lap slower as they both suffered MGU-K failures. Hamilton jumped ahead for half a lap before succumbing to brake problems and Rosberg was left alone to defend from the rapidly-closing pack.

He kept Perez at bay by building a gap of over a second in sectors one and two, ensuring the Force India driver – suffering problems of his own – couldn’t get close enough to use DRS. When Perez was replaced by Ricciardo, however, Rosberg was powerless to defend.

Rosberg beat Hamilton in qualifying on ‘his’ track, then took it to him in the race only to lose his place before Hamilton’s complete failure because of a mechanical issue. Not only then did he finish in the points with a lack of power he finished on the podium putting a bigger gap between him and Hamilton. Such a result may pay off in the later half of the season.
Jimbo Hull (@Kartingjimbo)

Rosberg. Pole against Hamilton on his best track, second place with 160 horsepower less than the others sure is impressive.
Jdjhy

3. Sergio Perez

Started: 13th
Finished: 11th

Force India struggled throughout practice and were regularly the slowest Mercedes powered team, so it was no surprise to see both cars fall out in Q2.

Perez got a good start from 13th and moved up into the top ten. As teams around them pitted it became increasingly obvious Force India were trying to stop just once, and Perez moved into third, behind only the two Mercedes cars.

When their issues hit Perez was best placed to take advantage, but problems of his own meant he couldn’t keep close enough to Rosberg in sectors one and two to gain DRS. As a result Ricciardo got past with five laps to go and Vettel followed as they began the last lap.

Closing on the Red Bull down the straight Perez pulled off of the racing line, but unfortunately Massa had planned the same thing, and the two cars collided at high speed, resulting in a tremendous accident and losing both drivers solid points hauls. Perez was judged responsible and handed a grid penalty for the next race.

Perez did a super race. Only electronic problems and lack of grip at the end allowed Ricciardo to overtake him.
Adrian Chavez Lopez (@Adyel)

2014 Driver of the Weekend results

RaceFirstSecondThird
AustralianKevin Magnussen (48.38%)Valtteri Bottas (24.49%)Daniel Ricciardo (14.05%)
MalaysianLewis Hamilton (54.3%)Nico Hulkenberg (24.0%)Sebastian Vettel (6.5%)
BahrainLewis Hamilton (49.2%)Sergio Perez (25.7%)Daniel Ricciardo (16.6%)
ChinaFernando Alonso (47.7%)Lewis Hamilton (30.7%)Daniel Ricciardo (7.8%)
SpainSebastian Vettel (51.9%)Lewis Hamilton (20.5%)Romain Grosjean (11.0%)
MonacoJules Bianchi (60.2%)Nico Rosberg (11.5%)Daniel Ricciardo (8.8%)
CanadaDaniel Ricciardo (44.9%)Nico Rosberg (22.4%)Sergio Perez (9.5%)

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 Canadian Grand Prix articles

Image © Red Bull/Getty

17 comments on “First win and first Driver of the Weekend for Ricciardo”

  1. Heath (@lotus4thewin)
    17th June 2014, 20:18

    If it was going to be a Red Bell to break the Mercedes streak, I’d have definitely chosen Ricciardo.

  2. Easily the most deserving DOTW. Clearly the Red Bulls arenot the fastest but Daniel placed himself in the best possible to win a race. And when he saw his chance, he made it count. Surprised to see only 44% votes for him though. So, nearly 1/4 of the readers thought that someone else (Massa?) apart from Dan, Nico and Sergio was the DOTW?

    1. @1abe – Yep. Next highest were:
      4th: Massa – 7%
      5th: Vettel – 5%
      6th: Button – 4%
      7th: Hamilton – 3%
      8th: Vergne – 2%
      9th: Hulkenberg/Alonso – 1%

      1. @bradley13 Thanks

        So looking at the trend, this is the only race so far where the spread for the DOTW was more than others. Kinda expected from Canada. :)

    2. @1abe “Surprised to see only 44% votes for him though”

      I think it’s because Ricciardo didn’t have the ‘perfect’ weekend. He was beaten fairly convincingly in qualifying which almost automatically prevents it from being a no-brainer. Other factors such as Rosberg’s car problems, and two main contenders (for DoTW) colliding in an incident in which not everyone agrees who is to blame confuse the issue further. Then you have Button who barely featured in the race footage but was solid and came out with a good result. So there are reasons to vote for a number of drivers after quite a hectic race weekend.

      1. @keithedin -“I think it’s because Ricciardo didn’t have the ‘perfect’ weekend.”

        Sorry, have to disagree with you here. It dont think that it is necessary to have a ‘perfect weekend’ to be the DOTW. All it needs is to put on a drive to get the optimum result they can based on the strategy and from the position they qualified. And based on the factors you mentioned, Jules should not have been the DOTW for Monaco. The only reason Jules Bianchi finish ninth was because of 8 retirements and Kimi and Max’s accident during the safety car and then Kimi’s and Kevin’s collision. He had a penalty after the race as well and all this after starting at the back of the grid due to a penalty. Not a ‘perfect weekend’ in my books but a deserving winner because he placed himself in the best situation to get the result that he got.

        1. @1abe Maybe i didn’t explain my point very well, because i actually agree with what you’re saying. I was just trying to explain why he ‘only’ got 44% of the votes, rather than say 70%+. You absolutely don’t have to be perfect to get DotW, you just have to be better than everyone else ;) Your Bianchi point sums that up, I had some reservations about voting for him but in the end decided he was the best – because a lot of the strong performers that weekend also made mistakes.

          1. @keithedin

            Ah, reading your earlier comment now makes sense. Sorry about that. I should have read it better. :)

  3. Entirely speculation and all that, but if Rosberg ends up winning this championship by a couple of points, I think people will look back at this race, where he managed to hold on for so long onto the lead, and without problems for Perez may have even won! Imo he was driver of the weekend for this, as it was less based on luck than Ricciardo’s position (take NOTHING away from Ricciardo’s race). In fact, you could say it was fighting his bad luck and coming out triumphant that makes Nico’s race so impressive for me.

  4. He deserve it.

  5. He deserves it.

  6. So happy for Daniel, fortune could not have been given to a nicer person. What is it with Rosberg and second place?

  7. I voted for Rosberg personally, although I can see why people would choose Ricciardo.

    1. The one who wins, is driver of the weekend. I don’t know why, but that is wrong. In my view, Ricciardo won just because of the Mercedes’ problems. I also voted for Rosberg because the way he drove in the last few laps, with no brakes and -160 BHP, was a tremendous effort from him. Reminded me of Keke a little bit :)

      1. “The one who wins, is driver of the weekend.”

        @major-dev the winner has only been voted DOTW 3 out of the 7 races.

        This time I think people were swayed by the fact that it’s Riciardo’s first win and the feeling that he really deserves it, given previous results and his run of bad luck. Also, great drivers are great oppertunists and seem to magically be in the right place at the right time when it counts, this is a perfect example of that.

  8. Ok , so mercs down 160 hp ?

    Are they not 100 hp up in race trim anyway ?

    So only 60 hp down really ?

    If Renault can find some berries (hp) then Merc need to watch their backs closely ,

  9. Daniel earned that for sure but Nico could not have been too far behind IMO! To get a car that lost so much power (3 sec a lap a one stage) get it all together and nearly pull it off was no doubt one of Nico’s best efforts I think- a great drive by both. And Massa as well I thought!

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