Tough start to 2021 reminds Ricciardo of ‘love-hate’ relationship with motorsport

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In the round-up: Daniel Ricciardo says his tough start to the season of McLaren have reminded him of his “love-hate” relationship with motorsport.

In brief

Ricciardo has “love-hate” relationship with motorsport

After recording McLaren’s first point-less finish of the season in Monaco, Ricciardo said his ongoing struggles in his first season with his new team have reminded him of past frustrations in his motor racing career.

“As far as racing, I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate with it, and that’s the truth,” said Ricciardo. “Some days I love it more than anything, and some days I’m just like, you don’t have an answer.

“I had this love-hate from probably my first year in karting. I went out for the start of a race, a local race, and the engine didn’t start. We couldn’t get started, and I missed… I think I was maybe on the front row and it was like a big race at the time for me. We couldn’t figure it out.

“Anyways, two days later go back on that track, push the kart and it starts. So I learned pretty early on that race cars can be very unkind.

“I feel this weekend, it could just be down to that. Maybe this weekend wasn’t working, and maybe we just put it on the track in Baku and we’re there again.”

‘Carb Day’ saved my Indy 500 – Andretti

Marco Andretti, Herta-Haupert, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 2021
A floor problem was identified on Andretti’s car
Marco Andretti was grateful for IndyCar’s ‘Carb Day’ final practice session. “I’m not a Carb Day fan, but today it saved my Indy 500,” he admitted. “That’s why you have Carb Day. There was a bad electrical box we would have found on lap one.”

Last year’s pole-winner also revealed his team identified and fixed a problem with his floor after he qualified 25th for today’s race.

“I feel pretty confident [but] a little bummed because I think we would have been easily top nine car,” he said. “It was the floor. We can’t understand why. They wouldn’t let me say it publicly anyway.”

FREC winner disqualified

Formula Regional European Championship points-leader Gregoire Saucy dominated proceedings in the series’ seventh round in Paul Ricard. But he was stripped of his fourth victory of the season after his car failed a technical inspection. Hadrien David therefore took the win.

IndyCar needs its own ‘Drive to Survive’ – Brown

McLaren Racing CEO wants IndyCar to follow in F1’s footsteps by commissioning a similar series to ‘Drive to Survive’, saying he had spoken to the series’ CEO Mark Miles about it.

“It’s something IndyCar is interested in,” he said. “It would be great for the sport. Drive to Survive has been phenomenal for Formula 1. Made a huge impact around the world and North America. I think more importantly it’s turned new fans onto Formula 1.

“I think doing something similar for IndyCar will have a similar impact. We do have great personalities not only with the drivers but some big personalities in the sport, what goes on behind the scenes. I think that’s what Drive to Survive has done so well, is it’s captured the off-track action which there is plenty of. IndyCar is very similar in that manner.

“The more we can let fans in behind the ropes of these great sports that we participate in, the more intrigue there will be and the more fans we’ll create.”

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Comment of the day

@Robbie doubts protests against the teams which have flexing wings will get anywhere:

All teams’ current wings presumably pass the current load tests, and when the more stringent tests arrive the teams will have been given time to react to them. So protesting previous races or even the coming race will only show wings that pass the current tests, and since it would be unfair to suddenly change the test and expect wings designed for the previous test to pass a new test, teams will adapt their wings to the new test and will remain legal.
@Robbie

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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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18 comments on “Tough start to 2021 reminds Ricciardo of ‘love-hate’ relationship with motorsport”

  1. Surely not Mclaren’s as a team, but his first point-less finis in the team. Yes, he’s had a tough time at Mclaren thus far, but he’ll eventually get better as he did in Team Enstone.

    COTD: Agreed.

    1. I dont see him coming put of the midfield anymore. It has taken too long and his edge is no longer there. Even if McLaren builds the strongest car it will be Lando who will win the WDC. Lets hope he sticks around since he is such a colorful bright enthusiastic person.

      1. Did everyone forget that he beat Lando just 3 weeks ago in Barcelona? Yes, he’s in a tough situation, but he’s not all lost.

  2. Some weird concerns regarding the race in Miami. I’m pretty sure air pollution (from traffic) goes down, as the streets will be closed instead of open to cars 24/7.

    1. @kaiie did they not change the circuit layout to avoid using a number of local roads, meaning that the streets won’t be shut to traffic?

      You have created a major sporting event that is intended to encourage large numbers of people to cluster in a particular location, and there will be a sizeable number of people who will drive there. It’s not clear cut to me that air pollution would go down, and I could easily see a scenario where the increase in traffic from people going to the venue results in increased pollution as a result.

    2. @kaiie Yeah, sad actually. Unfortunately crimes, including sex crimes, happen more during GP weekends in cities like Montreal, for example. There have been many stories about this in the Canadian press over the years.

  3. RandomMallard (@)
    30th May 2021, 8:24

    Also send your prayers to Jason Dupasquier, a Moto3 rider who suffered a horrific accident in Qualifying yesterday and is in a bad but stable condition in hospital. I know motorcycle racing isn’t something covered particularly often here, but the aftermath seems worryingly close to Bianchi’s accident.

    1. Yeah, I don’t often follow motorcycle racing, but saw a bit of that (and follow others who do on social media), really bad stuff @randommallard, let’s hope the outcome is better.

    2. 15 minutes ago it was published that he sadly passed away

      1. Yeah, just read that too baasbas, very sorry to witness it.

        1. That’s the stuff that makes my stomach turn, seeing the images and knowing this young guy of only 19 didn’t make it

  4. In regard to the COTD no there will be no retrospective action taken, because imo they aren’t cheating just taking advantage of a badly written rule. The question is will the changes effect RB enough to take away their advantage over Merc?

    1. @johnrkh I doubt the flexy wing is responsible for ’their advantage’ for as we know RBR are not always faster than Mercedes. Really depends on the event so far this year, or even the session or stint. And of course all the cars wings flex but only at the higher speeds are they flexing enough to make much difference. I have a feeling post-new FIA test we won’t notice a difference and it will still depend on the event as to which team seems to be stronger on average over the weekend between Mercedes and RBR.

      1. @robbie

        for as we know RBR are not always faster than Mercedes.

        But even being sometimes faster is a step up from last year when RB was slower on race day every race. It doesn’t take much to turn things around and likely why Wolff is pressing the issue. Obviosly McLaren are sniffing a chance to cut a bit of time between them and RB. Have Ferrari said anything? If not I’m sure they’re a very interested bystander.

        1. @johnrkh I just think RBR will only lose such a tiny amount from a stiffer rear wing that we won’t even notice. From what I read a week or so ago, Binotto has said Ferrari will likely have to change their wing to meet the new tests as well, and it has been said here that it is Ferrari that Mac has in mind with their pressing of the flexing wing issue, whereas for Merc the focus is on RBR’s. According to Vasseur he has essentially said none of them are ‘bystanders’ as you have worded it, and they will all have to change their wings as they all build them to the limits of the FIA tests.

          1. @robbie Well it raises the question as to why RB would spend a good amount of a limited budget on something they would have known was on the edge legally for little to no net gain. But they wouldn’t be the first Motor Racing team to throw money at an idea that doesn’t quite work out.

    2. @johnrkh whether or not it would be classed as cheating would depend on how exactly Red Bull achieved that performance.

      To use a prior example, Red Bull’s front wing might have passed the deflection tests in 2014, but they were excluded from qualifying in the 2014 Abu Dhabi GP because the way that they got the wing to pass the deflection test was through an illegal mechanism. It is not just the test, but the mechanism by which they pass the test that is important.

      There probably won’t be retrospective action on the grounds that it would be difficult to prove that a team was breaking the rules and the mechanism by which it was doing that though.

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