Singapore not Red Bull’s last chance to win this year – Ricciardo

2017 Singapore Grand Prix

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Daniel Ricciardo believes the Singapore Grand Prix will be one of Red Bull’s best chances to win a race before the end of 2017, but not their only one.

Red Bull’s only victory of the year so far was scored by Ricciardo in Azerbaijan. He says the next street track on the calendar presents a strong opportunity for the team.

“I believe Singapore won’t be our only chance but is one of our best chances of a win in the second half of the season,” said Ricciardo.

“I’ve started second and finished second at this track in the last two years, with fastest lap both times,” he added, “so my aim this year is definitely to start on pole and try to go one better in the race.”

Red Bull showed promising pace at Monza, a circuit which wasn’t expected to suit them. The team qualified second and third before taking engine change penalties and Ricciardo climbed twelve places in the race to finish fourth ahead of one of the Ferraris.

The team has again selected a large quantity of the ultra-soft tyres, as it did at Spa where the compound was last used. Ricciardo and team mate Max Verstappen will have ten sets of the softest rubber available.

Ricciardo says a cautious approach is needed to begin with at the track. “You have to build up speed a little slower in the practice sessions on a street circuit like Singapore,” he said. “At some point you have to start taking risks but to do that straight away doesn’t make sense.”

As the final leg of flyaway races begins Ricciardo is fourth in the championship, six points ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. After Singapore the championship will visit Sepang, Suzuka, the Circuit of the Americas, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Interlagos and Yas Marina.

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    17 comments on “Singapore not Red Bull’s last chance to win this year – Ricciardo”

    1. 2017 is really a classic season. We’ve got 2 super forces banging for wins and a dark horse in RBR. I only wished the 2 at the lead had more mishaps or/and RBR was closer in speed to rip some wins away from them on pure pace alone.
      This configuration (2+1) has been the most typical for Formula 1 for as long as I can remember. I obviously wished we had more participants though.

      When was the last time we had 3 evenly matched teams fighting for wins?

      1. Got it – 2010 ;) With no other season like that in sight.

        1. Argument for 2005 as another similar, although Ferrari weren’t quite as good as McLaren and Renault, but this year Red Bull aren’t quite as good. Also the 2nd half of 2009 was kinda like that, with Brawn, Red Bull and McLaren (well, Hamilton, as Kovalainen wasn’t very good, but the McLaren car itself was).
          McLaren are in all of these, and it’s making me sad…

          1. And, well, there was Spa 2009 (and Force India were back then previously sort of where Sauber is now – or at least that’s how they started the season) where Ferrari did….rather well

      2. It depends how you define evenly matched! 2010 was probably the closest we’ve been in a while (possibly 2012). Here we had Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull all fairly evenly matched, with a different car better at certain circuits. Those two seasons have been the ones I’ve most enjoyed over the past number of years.

        This year represents a more classic Formula One title battle, two alpha’s in two good cars fighting it out at the top. Think Schumacher/Hakkinen, Lauda/Hunt, Senna/Prost. The scene has been set and I hope we’ll be talking about the last few races of 2017 for just as long as the ones I’ve just mentioned.

        1. Senna/Prost.

          On a side note: When driving different cars, Prost and Senna were only on equal terms in 1990.
          And that was a great 2+2 season, with Williams and Benetton grabbing 2 wins each behind the dominating McLaren and Ferrari.

          I’d like to classify (or have someone done it) all F1 seasons this way :)

          1. In 2003 was between three : Schumacher on Ferrari, Raikkonen on McLaren and Montoya with Williams. One of the best I can remember

      3. In 2012 there were more than three teams fighting for victories. I think this year is lacking many things to be a true classic season like 2010 or 2012. It has a headline-grabbing title battle and comes after four terrible years so that helps but you can easily pick up the shortcomings: static pecking order, lack of challenge from midfielders, many boring races, RB challenge never materialising etc. But has an exciting title fight and new more spectacular cars (and some great little thinks from Liberty) so it could have been much worse.

    2. Has anyone ever figured out why Hamilton was half a tenth faster than the grid in S2 of Baku on his last qualifying lap in Q3? Isn’t that the twisty slow section?

      I remember thinking after that that it would be hard to keep up with Mercedes but then Hungary happened and they weren’t really on Ferrari’s pace.

      Is it a temperature thing? Because in Baku it was difficult to get temperature into the tyres. And I I remember correctly that was a problem that affected Mercedes more than anyone pre-Baku to the point they were doing two warm-up laps compared to the one for RBR and Ferrari. Which is what makes that Q3 in Baku even more confusing. RIC’s crash meant teams only had time for one warm-up lap and Merc(HAM in particular) was a second up on the Ferraris.

      I ask because if they can tap into what happened in Baku(highly unlikely but not impossible) does that put them into play next weekend in Singapore? Why are we and themselves writing them off?

      1. ‘We’ are writing them off because we like to put cars into categories that should suit different tracks at different times, and we’ve put the W08 in a category that shouldn’t suit Singapore. But then there’s a reason we aren’t F1 engineers.

        Mercedes are publicly writing themselves off because it’s what they do, but given their performances relative to Ferrari in Monaco and Hungary I think it’s wise on this occasion to try and cool public expectations.

        Personally I don’t think Singapore compares closely with any other track on the calendar. In terms of demand on aero it’s not dissimilar to Monaco, but the temperature means that the tyres work in a completely different way and should suit the W08 better than the colder conditions in Monaco when Mercedes didn’t quite understand the US behaviour. I don’t think they’ll be lagging that far behind Ferrari and Red Bull, so it’s going to take a mighty qualifying session from all six of the drivers to get anywhere near pole.

        They’ll all need to try and nail their setups early on and then keep calm during qualifying. I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a Vettel / Ricciardo front row though.

        1. This has to be one of the weirder seasons with respect to tires especially. I keep coming back to Baku though. Temperatures were low all weekend long and keeping heat in the tires was difficult. But somehow Merc and Lewis found close to half a second in S2(was 4 tenths or something) in Baku. How has nobody come up with an explanation for that weekend. Because if I remember correctly Merc was also pulling away comfortably from Ferrari after every safety car restart. I know the long straights played a part in this scenario.

          1. @JayR ”Temperatures were low all weekend” – How exactly are 28, 29, and 31 degrees Celsius low temperatures, LOL?

        2. I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a Vettel / Ricciardo front row though.

          @sparkyamg And where is “Mad Max” going to be? If it is right behind Vettel then I think he will be a “bit” concerned. :-)

          1. I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a Vettel / Ricciardo front row though.

            I’de figure Ricciardo would be over the moon as he’s ben outqualified 8 out of the last 9 sessions

            1. And RB will be over the moon if Vestappen can get through a race with out hitting someone or something.

    3. RIC is laughing ’cause he knows VER will retire and he’s going to win the race.

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