Fourth Driver of the Weekend win for Ricciardo

2016 Italian Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend result

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Daniel Ricciardo was voted Driver of the Weekend for the Italian Grand Prix, taking his fourth victory in the poll this year. The Red Bull driver has topped the poll twice more than any of his rivals this season.

Ricciardo, who previously won in China, Moncaco and Germany, picked up 37.4% of a vote which many readers felt was difficult to judge after a fairly lacklustre grand prix.

Daniel Ricciardo’s Italian Grand Prix weekend

Fifth looked like the best Red Bull could hope for at Monza
From free practice on Friday it was clear Red Bull were nowhere near the pace of Mercedes and Ferrari, and could also struggle to beat Williams. So for Ricciardo to be ahead of one Williams and just one thousandth of a second behind the other was a fine effort.

Having got off the line much better than his team mate, Ricciardo got ahead of the slow starting Hamilton, though this didn’t last long. Once Hamilton easily accelerated past Ricciardo kept the Williams of Valtteri Bottas in close sight. Crucially, this allowed Red Bull to go aggressive with his strategy, fitting super-soft tyres for Ricciardo’s final stint..

On a set of tyres one step softer than Bottas, Ricciardo quickly set about closing the gap to the Williams. When the pass came, it was one to remember. Ricciardo launched down the inside of Bottas from a seemingly impossible distance. That move, which put a lock on fifth place, was cited by many as their reason for voting for him.

Ricciardo had a decent qualifying, a decent race and a pass on Bottas that was a joy to watch.
hyoko

It cannot go to either Mercedes because of their performances in qualifying and the race. I think I will give it to Ricciardo for getting the most out of his car. Fifth was the maximum for Red Bull.
Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)

Got to be Ricciardo. Absolutely maximised the position on the worst track for his car on the calendar. Destroyed Verstappen both in qualifying and race. Made an amazing overtake from way back on Bottas. What more could you ask for?
@Montreal95

Italian Grand Prix winners and losers

Rosberg still hasn’t won Driver of the Weekend this year
Despite winning his seventh race of the season, Nico Rosberg remains yet to win Driver of the Weekend this year. The Mercedes driver received second-highest number of votes for the Monza race. Team mate Lewis Hamilton, who has won all car one of the remaining races, has just a single Driver of the Weekend victory to his name.

The consensus however was that no-one in particular stood out all weekend, with a number of readers citing this as a reason for not voting. With this in mind, from the next race Driver of the Weekend will include an option to vote for ‘no driver’.

Maybe this is the weekend I skip this part. I didn’t see anyone do anything special on both days to warrant a Driver of the Weekend award. Ricciardo maybe for his pass but it was too reliant on Bottas giving him a clean pass on the corner.

Gutierrez could have got it for his awesome qualifying, had he scored some points today. That hope was taken care of, at the lights.
@Evered7

Toughest one of the year this. Rosberg and Button were mighty impressive in the race but were beaten in qualifying by their teammates. Several drivers put in some decent performance to beat their teammate in qualifying and the race such as Vettel, Ricciardo, Bottas, Perez and Wehrlein. Also Hamilton and Gutierrez did excellent in qualifying but didn’t well in the race.

I’m going to sit on the fence for this one, pretty much an impossible job to choose.
Kavin Kannan (@lolzerbob)

No one stood out too much. Can’t give it to Rosberg as he got absolutely hammered in qualifying. Hamilton had a poor start and threw a win away. Ferrari were the second fastest by a long way so third and fourth was a given.

Ricciardo made a decent overtake and finished where you’d expect him to. I guess Ricciardo because of the overtaking manoeuvre but if there was a “no-one” option, I’d have gone for that!
@Petebaldwin

Race DOTW winner Votes
2016 Australian Grand Prix Romain Grosjean 61.0%
2016 Bahrain Grand Prix Romain Grosjean 39.4%
2016 Chinese Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo 44.7%
2016 Russian Grand Prix Kevin Magnussen 32.6%
2016 Spanish Grand Prix Max Verstappen 68.5%
2016 Monaco Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo 49.6%
2016 Canadian Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton 28.5%
2016 European Grand Prix Sergio Perez 67.3%
2016 Austrian Grand Prix Pascal Wehrlein 43.2%
2016 British Grand Prix Max Verstappen 55.2%
2016 Hungarian Grand Prix Kimi Raikkonen 38.3%
2016 German Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo 45.5%
2016 Belgian Grand Prix Fernando Alonso 43.3%
2016 Italian Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo 37.4%

2016 Italian Grand Prix

Browse all 2016 Italian Grand Prix articles

33 comments on “Fourth Driver of the Weekend win for Ricciardo”

  1. “With this in mind, from the next race Driver of the Weekend will include an option to vote for ‘no driver’.”
    Blah, even if no one has a perfect weekend, someone is always the best. If we must have the ‘no driver’ option, at least it should be named ‘I can’t decide’ or something like that. Allowing users to vote multiple drivers would be a better solution to the difficulty of choosing – although I wouldn’t want that either, I think the current DotW poll in all its simplicity has been good enough.

    1. Personally I consider Monza to be an anomaly in the way no one stood out (I don’t think Riccardo’s one good move was enough to warrant a full driver of the day award). It’s nice to have the option, but I suspect it won’t be used that heavily.

      1. wasn’t just his one good move

    2. @hotbottoms If I honestly cannot pick a single driver out after the weekend, I usually just abstain from voting.

    3. @hotbottoms

      Allowing users to vote multiple drivers would be a better solution

      I think that would make things too complicated. Not least because different people would want to vote for different numbers of drivers, raising questions about how to weight their voting.

      1. @keithcollantine
        I agree, that’s why I said that I prefer the current DotW poll :)

      2. @keithcollantine Maybe we can rank all the 22 drivers in order of how they performed for each weekend. Then we could get an average to see who wins. And then we could use the results to create an f1 fanatic user championship. I think it’s too much to ask now, but maybe for ’17?

        1. @lolzerbob ranking all 22 is too much – it would take too much time and effort. Plus trying to distinguish between so many drivers is difficult. Usually finding a couple of standouts (either for their above or below par performances) is easy, it’s the middle ground where people have mediocre, run-of-the-mill weekends that would be hard to rank.

          I wouldn’t mind ranking my top 3 drivers of the weekend though.

      3. I would also keep it like it is: one single vote to the best driver of the weekend. If no one stood out, at least the voter could keep it simple and pick the winner

        1. I agree with you Daniel, why is everyone trying to make a meal out of this?

      4. Keith no need for wasting your time on bothersome polling, just give it Daniric every weekend, he deserves it with “The Crusty Helmet ” now saying he is backing Max!!
        See Keith we could work well together.

    4. DotW on this site selected based on personal hate for others… If A merc driver wins, it is considered boring… If a merc driver comes from the back to podium, it is boring… If some midfielder gets a few positions based on others’ miserable weekend, they are praised highly… This is pretty screwed up as majority of the votes are based on personal hate/taste rather than pure performance… it s sad…

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        9th September 2016, 14:49

        @mysticus – How can it be based on pure performance though when we don’t know the comparative performance of the cars? How can we compare Wehrlein finishing 15th in a Manor to Rosberg finishing 1st in a Mercedes for example based on pure performance?

        In regards to Mercedes winning – I don’t think it’s necessarily a case of it being boring. It’s more a case of if Alonso, Button, Wehrlein, Perez, Bottas, Sainz and Grosjean all drove the race of their lives and were could not have extracted an additional tenth from the entire race distance, Hamilton or Rosberg would still win the race with their engines turned down to 50%.

      2. @mysticus A glance at the pre-2014 results is more than enough to prove that isn’t the case.

        1. What was different pre 2014? and which point was to prove what case?

      3. Anyone driving a car as dominant as Mercedes is today is expected to win and has the obligation to finish second at worst. To be Driver of the Weekend, he would need to convincingly beat his team-mate both in qualy and race, without a surprise pole, podium or points finish for another driver… Personal preference might explain odd 1% or 2% for a particular driver, but not the general trend…

        1. Havent seen that is the case when it is Ham? When he beat Rosberg, or Rosberg beat Ham…

          Everyone can paint a different pic, and this is becoming more obvious by day… Results almost always reflect personal taste or hate for against dominant drivers… If Ham wins fighting Ros, vice versa it is called boring racing, if a mid fielder jumps a few position in a random weekend, it is called extraordinary… sighs, gimme a break… apart from 1-2 guys in mid field non of them are consistent… But people still paint them wonders…

    5. If I can’t choose between a few drivers I just go for the one I think is likely to get the least votes.

    6. +1

      There has to be at least one driver that someone feels did a better job than the rest of the field.

      If nobody stands out simply abstain from voting.

      I fear the “nobody” vote could be abused and used as a protest vote to ensure nobody wins, instead of a driver you don’t like.

      Have another think about the nobody option Keith. Personally I think the poll works perfectly well at the moment.

  2. ColdFly F1 (@)
    9th September 2016, 11:49

    I didn’t know there were 2 races last week, @Montreal95!

    Destroyed Verstappen both in qualifying and race.

    In the race I watched:
    1) RIC ‘destroyed’ VES in quali by 2/100th
    2) RIC ‘destroyed’ VES during the race by having the same pace (VES only lost time at start & first laps when in traffic)

    1. @coldfly

      Verstappen is hated on this website consistently now since Spa by some users. Ricciardo and Verstappen were closely matched this weekend I think

      1. +1, all of a sudden he is as bad as Maldonado, is going to cause death to another driver, doesn’t deserve to be in F1 with his racing attitude, is being destroyed by Ricciardo.

        That’s a selection of the things I’ve heard said or implied on here, over the past few weeks.

        1. Aren’t you just doing the opposite of what you’re complaining about?

        2. Nonna Verstappen
          10th September 2016, 4:22

          making up for the gushings that he is the reincarnation of Senna perhaps?

    2. @coldfly Verstappen currently causes so many ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ sympathy that it is very difficult to have a normal discussion about him and his results. Real shame, but Hamilton and Vettel went through the same phase and there will also be future drivers that will be surrounded by so much buzz.

    3. Guybrush Threepwood
      9th September 2016, 13:07

      Verstappen didn’t have the pace of Ricciardo in the race – but it was difficult to tell when both were held up by other drivers for a good part of it. When they were in clear air on the same tyres – which wasn’t for long – Ricciardo was lapping faster than Verstappen and was able to get more out of his soft tyres, hence the SS final stint whereas Verstappen had to do a second stint on the soft tyre.

      1. +1 for Coldfly and others defending VES. VES had a nice pas just after RIC passed BOT, but it seems to go unnoticed.

        Not trying to take anything away from RIC. I believe they were both at the same level this weekend. Again. Looking at lap time charts, I can not find any proof that one was quicker than the other.

        1. Nonna Verstappen
          10th September 2016, 4:26

          They have a black and white tool that grossly measures this.

      2. Guybrush Threepwood didn’t have the same pace…? After the first stint where Ves had his bad start he fell behind 8 seconds in total, at the finish that distance was still 8 seconds. Second stint Ves was slightly faster, third sting Ric on ss slightly faster. The gap mantained troughout the whole race, they are just about equal.

        Both driver did about the same time in Q, 0.022 sec difference, both did some nice overtaking… Ric on Bottas, Ves a couple mre on Hulkenberg, Alonso and Perez.. he especially like his overtake on Hulkenberg which was round the outside (not shown on tv). Overall Ric was in front on the grid and had a better start, therefore a better race

  3. Alonso is the driver of the day at every race for putting up with performance of the McLaren – and for his comments on the radio, eg laughing in response to being told he is being caught by a Haas

  4. Well deserved, hes the best driver on the grid.

  5. Surprised it wasn’t button really. I think it further goes to show really how abysmal the broadcast was at actually presenting the race as opposed to just following the top 6 around the track.

  6. Also, if we’re doing the whole Verstappen – Ricciardo comparison thing, Verstappen had a terrible start, but ended within ten seconds of Ricciardo. Hamilton ended further back from Rosberg. Totally arbitrary comparison, but Hamilton is better than Rosberg, no?
    Not saying this signifies anything but neither does Ricciardo finishing ahead mean he had better race pace. Also obviously not saying Verstappen should be DOTW but neither should Ricciardo.

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