Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2022

Ricciardo encouraged by “little breakthrough after Monaco”

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: After a difficult spell of races, Daniel Ricciardo says he’s making progress at McLaren.

In brief

Ricciardo happier in car since Monaco

After comments by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown prompted speculation over Ricciardo’s future, the driver endured a difficult weekend in Monaco where he was well behind team mate Lando Norris.

However following informal conversations with the team’s top management and more work on the team’s simulator, Ricciardo has seen signs of genuine progress.

“It’s also not like I needed a kick up the arse,” he said after the Canadian Grand Prix. “I’m not silly, I know where my results are and I know what’s good and what isn’t. It’s really them just trying to, again, see if there’s anything they can do to help.

“But I felt like we did have a little breakthrough after Monica over at the factory on the sim, we tried a few things and I think even though our result today wasn’t good, I think the last couple of weekends have certainly been better and shown more promise.”

Red Bull junior Edgar returns from illness

FIA Formula 3 racer Jonny Edgar will make his return to the series this weekend. After starting the season at the Bahrain double-header he missed the last four races due to illness.

The Red Bull Junior driver was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which causes inflammation of the digestive system. He said on social media yesterday he has “now improved sufficiently to make my return to racing” at his home round next weekend with Trident.

“As well as my family and friends, I have so many people I would like to thank for making this possible, particularly Dr Helmut Marko and everyone at Red Bull, Trident Motorsport, Dr Phil Batty, Mr Mike Davison, Dr David Nylander, Dr Ally Speight and their team at RVI Newcastle, Sam Village, Jeff Thorpe and the BRDC.”

Hamilton “disgusted” by US abortion ruling

Lewis Hamilton took to social media to condemn yesterday’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court that the country’s constitution does not provide a right to abortion, overturning a precedent which was established in 1973.

“Disgusted by the decision made by the Supreme Court in the US today,” said Hamilton. “I don’t understand why some in power pushed and continue to push to strip rights away from millions of people. This decision will impact the most vulnerable among us. Women, people of colour, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and so on.”

“The following organisations provide resources to protect the people that need it and fight to ensure peoples rights to choose,” he added. “Planned Parenthood is matching donations. The ACLU is fighting to expand access and protect reproductive rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Bottas celebrates Alfa Romeo’s birthday in Milan

Valtteri Bottas toured the city centre of Milan in a Formula 1 car yesterday to celebrate the marque’s 112th birthday. He drove one of the Sauber team’s earlier cars repainted in its current Alfa Romeo colour scheme.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

MichaelN is convinced Charles Leclerc is the only serious contender Max Verstappen faces this year:

Whether or not the Ferrari is fast enough is debatable. Over one lap it is, but even when Leclerc has taken pole, Verstappen has on multiple occasions had little issue flying past the low top speed Ferrari. Leclerc has also been somewhat complacent in defending those positions, perhaps accepting that Red Bull was faster on the day and expecting that Ferrari would win plenty of other races. Problem is; they haven’t.

Verstappen’s lead in the championship is actually extremely impressive considering the huge advantage Leclerc had over him after Australia; it even prompted Verstappen to dismiss talk of a championship. After a good first few races, Ferrari’s title challenge has collapsed almost beyond fixing through driving errors, tactical mistakes, lack of reliability, a lacklustre second driver, and no fix in sight to their number one issue when it comes to actual races: low top speed. It means they get stuck in traffic more so than Red Bull, can’t meaningfully oppose a DRS-assisted challenge, and even when they have the DRS-assistance they can’t overtake the Red Bulls.

That said, it’s absolutely true that everyone except Leclerc is not a serious contender. Pérez and Sainz aren’t quick enough, and Mercedes can beat Alpine and collect points when Red Bull and Ferrari DNF, but their car is simply too slow.
MichaelN

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Kim Philby and Brandonrc!

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

45 comments on “Ricciardo encouraged by “little breakthrough after Monaco””

  1. greasemonkey
    25th June 2022, 1:26

    Before everyone goes on condemning the US, the court ruling does not ban abortion. It makes it a State level decision. No State will outright ban it. F1 goes to a lot of countries with less abortion freedom than the strictest US state will have (which will be Oklahoma, with what amounts to “yellow” on the Center for Reproductive Rights website.) Brazil, Mexico, UAE, etc, all already have less freedom on this issue than the strictest US state will have. (although to be fair Mexico’s 2021 change /might/ make it slightly more open than Oklahoma, but all of the rest of the States will be more free)

    There is a strong case that one pure Constitutional grounds, given that it is united “States”, and that even murder is state law, not national law, that this was inevitable.
    IOW, if it is to be national, it should be an Amendment (like other rights per the Bill of Rights), not just a court ruling.

    Which may or may not also be inevitable now.

    1. greasemonkey
      25th June 2022, 1:28

      Mainly, for people not in the US, just scanning headlines, the ruling does NOT ban abortion.

      1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-25/roe-v-wade-decision-supreme-court/101167158

        What the states will do will effectively be a ban. To not recognise that is ignorance.

      2. What the Supreme Court decision today said is that access to a health care procedure is not a guaranteed right for American citizens. This means that it is up to individual states to determine if access will be permitted and under what conditions. Most “red” states have either already enacted laws or are preparing laws that make performing a health care procedure illegal. This decision is worthy of condemnation by any rational human living in the real world.

        Not only is the decision itself worthy of condemnation but the logic behind it strains credulity and opens the door for even more regressive laws to be passed at the state level which could strip the rights of many people who aren’t specifically identified in a document over 200 years old. And if you think that is hyperbole, Justice Thomas, who was part of the majority decision has already stated as much today, when he argued for the repeal of protections of a number of marginalized groups.

      3. For guns it was decided that such decisions for all US citizens should not be decided by individual states.

        Women in the US do not get that same privilege.

        America everyone.

        1. greasemonkey
          25th June 2022, 14:16

          And that NY gun decision, from a states rights POV (10th, etc) is probably wrong, in my opinion.

          Meaning that neither decision probably actually factored in states rights. There were both just political, not Constitutional, based.

      4. greasemonkey, I guess you have not looked at the Center for Reproductive Rights website subsequently, as it now shows multiple states, such as Oklahoma, as having enacted trigger laws that now impose a total ban on abortion.

        1. greasemonkey
          25th June 2022, 14:00

          That updated over (my) night. Correct, I had not seen that.

      5. The ruling allo states to effectively ban abortion

      6. petebaldwin (@)
        25th June 2022, 13:10

        I can’t think of another country that is going backwards as fast as America where you can’t blame a war… a truly messed up place.

        1. I live in America, and I agree. What a mess we are right now. Embarrassing.

    2. Technically correct, but you miss one major thing. Current state laws were based on the previous Supreme Court decision (Wade vs Roe) which protected the right of the women to decide themselves.

      Now many states will introduce stricter legislation to effectively ban that right.

    3. “No State will outright ban it.”

      They have already done that

    4. Well, your President (I’m guessing you’re from the US) seems to think to think it is an end to women’s freedom .
      Although he did point out that doctors and women are allowed to go to a state where it isn’t banned and perform the act. So I guess there is still some hope, for now.

      1. As LH so rightly points out, this is especially horrific for the most vulnerable. While there will still be many States to which one can go for an abortion, millions will not be able to afford nor have the ability to do so.

    5. Coventry Climax
      25th June 2022, 18:00

      @greasemonkey:
      Making it -as you say- a state level decision means that certain human rights may apply in certain states, but not in others.
      Read the above again: it’s applicable to both those in favour and those against.
      That is a downright pathetic situation for something deemed as universal as human rights, and the judges in the supreme court have just declared themselves incompetent.
      Freedom and justice for all? Haha, my excremental rear hole.

  2. You know what really gets me upset?
    That we have the top drivers in the world competing for a championship, and we have stupid formats like sprint races, but F1 does not organize an exhibition race with everyone in F2 cars to fight each other in the same machinery. The viewership will sky rocket for this event.

    1. I’d love to see that as well.
      But let’s be realistic (rather than upset), F1 is a team sport and it should not focus too much on the drivers.
      In a pure F1 world there would not even be a WDC.

      1. Agreed, except that Sprint races have nothing to do with team sports. It is purely for entertainment. Why not add this as well? Also, the pre-requisite to reaching the team sport is being an excellent driver. Which kind of makes F1 about drivers from the get go.
        Maybe if we all start spamming them on all platforms they will consider it. :-?

        1. Agreed, except that Sprint races have nothing to do with team sports.

          I don’t know how you came to that conclusion, @hatebreeder… Athletics, swimming and cycling are just three other sports that immediately come to mind that use sprints in team-based competition also. Cycling is a great one, actually, as there is almost no end to the crazy things they’ll do to create a competition.
          Some might argue that 20/20 cricket is equivalent to a sprint race in car racing. Cricket is certainly a team sport also.
          Within the motorsport world, there are a large number of series that use sprint racing formats all around the globe, and are more popular for it.

          Also, the pre-requisite to reaching the team sport is being an excellent driver.

          Does that include Mazepin and Latifi? How about some past greats, such as Taki Inoue, Alex Yoong, Luca Badoer, and Yuji Ide?

          I like the idea of F1 drivers racing in spec cars – but I also know it will never, ever happen.
          Personally, I’ve long been an advocate of having a ‘Race of Champions’ style event at every GP where they use two-seater cars, with passenger seats auctioned off and proceeds going to charities.
          It’s sad that F1 used to be accessible and relatable like that in the past, but that aspect was shut down in favour of hype and celebrity status instead.

    2. Been saying this for year. It will never happen though. IMO, I’d love a championship in which there were two quali and two races per weekend. One in which the drivers drove their unique constructors car and another in which they drove identical spec formula cars (with the exception of setup changes).

      Something that’s less of a pipe dream I’d like to see: only one practice session per weekend. Three hours of practice running undermines showcasing each driver’s talent, intelligence, adaptability, etc. Even an average driver can match MV, LH, etc. given endless laps on the same track.

      1. Something that’s less of a pipe dream I’d like to see: only one practice session per weekend. Three hours of practice running undermines showcasing each driver’s talent, intelligence, adaptability, etc.

        YES!

        3 hours of practice is good at confirming that the team’s simulator is correlating well with the real world, though. Just in case that interests anybody….
        Can’t say I’ve ever heard someone say they came to the track to see that aspect myself, but maybe some do.

  3. Zak Brown should sack himself for presiding over the design of such a terrible car.

    1. The car is good, had a fundamental fault on the brakes and a bad pu, it can still be best merc at some tracks. Brown should have not fallen for the James Keys trap. With Fry he’d still have a solid top of the midfield car but Zak wanted more and that is understandable. Also you can’t hire discarded RB staff, there is probably a good reason why RB has not kept these people.

      1. What happened with Fry and Key?

  4. We should applaud Sir Lewis for having a discussion (even if people bring silly arguments) about abortion rights on a platform like this. Important things in life should be discussed everywhere, but you need people like him (and Keith and co. for putting it in the round-up) to bring it to the table and keep people aware of important stuff going on outside of the sport.

  5. I’m sorry Dan, you should have been at the factory, in the sim and trying different things before the car was even rolled out for testing after last year’s performances.

    Certainly you should have been there after the first race(s).

    Seem to me that drivers of Dan’s caliber are too proud to spend time in the sim and it’s showing in their results.

    I love Dan, but mate, you need to throw everything at getting back on top of the car, and to me this seems to be a little late coming.

    1. You do know the parameters for the sim changes with developments made and still in design. He does his sim work like Lando, and the reserves. He always throws everything at it, you don’t make it this far in F1 without doing that

    2. @dbradock where are you getting the idea that Ricciardo is “too proud” to spend time in the simulator?

      You claim that Ricciardo should have been “in the sim and trying different things before the car was even rolled out for testing after last year’s performances”, but that is exactly what Ricciardo was doing – for example, back in February, when McLaren first shook down their car, Ricciardo was talking about how he was pleased that there was good correlation between the behaviour of the real car and what he had experienced in the simulator, confirming that he had been working in the simulator before the car was rolled out for testing.

      In fact, you will find multiple examples from the start of this year to now of Ricciardo talking about his work in the simulator, such as talking in April about how he was changing the way that he was using the simulator to help prepare his set ups for a race weekend, discussing his work on the upgrade package for the Spanish GP in May and the work he did in the simulator around the Monaco GP, or equally the work he was doing in the run up to Baku earlier this month.

    3. You ass-ume wrongly that he wasn’t.

  6. Coventry Climax
    25th June 2022, 14:20

    In a country that hails “and freedom for all” it’s a downright disgrace that a bunch of old people (7 white men, 1 afro-american man, 4 white women, average age of 71) are allowed to decide that for such a heavy decision like abortion, others will make the decision for you.
    The US has just disqualified itself regarding any future discussion on human rights.

    1. While I agree with the sentiment, I’ll be pedantic and quibble with the details.

      The Supreme Court is currently made up of six men and three women. Five men are white. One is African American. Two women are white. One is Latina. There are three retired justices, but they do not contribute to the Supreme Court anymore.

      John Roberts, white male – Concurring Opinion
      Clarence Thomas, African American male – Majority Opinion
      Stephen Breyer, white male – Dissenting Opinion
      Samuel Alito, white male – Author, Majority Opinion
      Sonia Sotomayor, Latina – Dissenting Opinion
      Elena Kagan, white female – Dissenting Opinion
      Neil Gorsuch, white male – Majority Opinion
      Brett Kavanaugh, white male – Majority Opinion
      Amy Coney Barrett, white female – Majority Opinion

      Of note for this decision is that Chief Justice Roberts issued a Concurring Opinion rather than being included in the majority opinion because he felt the Majority Opinion language went too far and he would not have overturned Roe in its entirety, but would allow Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban law to remain in place. There were actually two votes due to this. A 6-3 vote for allowing Mississippi’s law and a 5-4 vote on overturning Roe completely.

    2. Further to that this has been in the works by the Republicans for decades and it took for the former President to select three judges that would ensure this would happen. What a terrible system they have.

      1. System isn’t bad if it is followed. One of those judges should have been selected by Obama, but the republicans refused to seat that justice and stalled until the worst president in US history took office. Criminal if you ask me.

  7. I’m disgusted about Hamilton’s opinion on the same subject.

  8. I don’t understand why abortion have that big attention when we have cheap and reliable ways to not get pregnant, people that care about minorities and woman should focus on providing access to those methods, because abortion is not healthy even if it’s done in a proper place with proper profissionals, the safer and healthier way is always to not get pregnant. That said, the question for me is WHEN there’s something that can be callled an human being in the womb, 15 weeks? Science should decide this not politicians, at the very moment science says there’s a conscience in there it’s “murder” and nothing can change that. Before this time threshold the woman should do anything she wants it’s her body.

    Sorry if I offended someone, it’s just my sincere opinion.

    1. The thing is getting pregnant isn’t always in your control. You can be doing all the right things regarding contraception and still get pregnant. The choice of abortion is not one taken lightly but is a choice that needs to be available. Of course there can be complications with intended pregnancies where the mother’s life can be at risk. And then of course there are forced pregnancies and accidental pregnancies for which the option needs to be there. The availability of contraceptive methods doesn’t negate the need to have the option.

      1. The probability of getting pregnant if you’re doing “all the right things” is like 0.01% or lower. It’s ok to have an option, but science should define the time threshold that defines if the life being is an human or just a bunch of cells.

        1. @Miane I’m not sure where you get your statistics from but the documented failure rate for condoms is around 13%. The documented failure rate for a diaphragm is around 17%. The documented failure rate for the pill is around 7%. That means even if people used the most common contraceptive protection methods, there is somewhere between a one in 10 chance and a one in five chance of becoming pregnant from a single sexual encounter if one of these contraceptive methods is used. Even vasectomies and tube tying surgeries are not 100% full proof.

          https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/index.htm#Contraceptive-Effectiveness

          And the likelihood of contraceptives being used during rape, incest or domestic abuse situations is incredibly small, potentially resulting in the woman being forced to endure the cost physically, emotionally,a do financially for 9 more months. I mention this because many of these laws going into effect have no exemptions for cases of rape or incest.

        2. You’re just making “facts” up. Even if the data you made up became factual, if still misses the entire point.

          Anyway, America has been taken over by two parties that enact the views held by a tiny radical percentage of their bases. The recent rulings and related state laws on guns and abortions are not even supported by most Republicans let alone democrats.

    2. greasemonkey
      26th June 2022, 0:31

      This is actually the crux of it, so far as I can distill it. When is the “human/person” line? After is murder. Before is maybe bad form, but should not be illegal.

      What seems very wrong is the sides hating each other, demonizing the other side as haters. One side does not “hate” women as the defining reason for their position, but are hated as such. The other side is not for murder as a defining reason, but is hated as such. The common names are actually pretty good in this case. Pro-life and Pro-choice. Who is against life or choice? But it is a tradeoff, and so far as I can tell, it boils down to when the fetus gets human rights of its own.

      But that is a tough question for all of society to agree on. Strangely, I’d have thought “born again” Christians might think that would be birth, since “born” is the big deal. And I’d have thought extreme secular science driven people might err as far towards when that new set of genes becomes viable in any reasonable way (which is pretty early).

      In any case, I am not asserting a right answer. I really don’t know how to come up with the most “correct” line. It is actually a very deep philosophical hole to work through. It is just disappointing that trying to calmly work out a discussion cannot even happen. It is just hatred from both camps towards the other camp.

      1. greasemonkey For me, while of course I understand there are two polarized sides to this making it complex, it should be ‘simple.’ What court or person or government or religion has the right to decide they know what is best…that THEIR opinion is the only opinion. Who are they that they think they have the right and have it right to dictate what rights women should and should not have.

        Women should be free to control their own bodies and should have freedom of choice. Full stop.

  9. The Supreme court decision itself may not have banned abortion it has allowed states to ban it. But there is more to come as several states are working on legislation that will make it illegal for women to cross borders in order to get an abortion in a pro-choice state.
    The Vatican is of course 100% behind the Supreme Court ruling and the states that use it to ban abortion. They are also supporting a review of birth control measures that should be banned. If that’s not bazaar and dangerous enough for you, Ted Cruz has introduced legislation to ban dildos in Texas.
    Making homosexuality illegal is not as far away as some people may think, as sodomy laws are already under review by the Supreme Court.
    The new ‘gun control’ laws signed into law by Biden probably won’t last more than a few months.

    1. @johnrkh in the case of Alito, it was noted that, in a particularly disturbing twist, he was quoting from the work of the 17th century philosopher Hale in his judgement. The reason it is disturbing is because, in the same text that Alito was quoting from, Hale also argued that husbands cannot be culpable of raping their wives because “by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself”.

      As you note, the list of rights that another juror, Thomas, argued should also be targeted include, as you mentioned, striking down legislation that criminalised homosexuality, rulings that widened access to contraception and the right to same sex marriages. Rather more alarmingly, it’s been pointed out that this judgement also attacks the basis on which Loving v Virginia, which was the judgement that struck down bans on interracial marriages, is founded (and whilst some might think that wouldn’t be targeted, it wasn’t until the 2000s that the majority of the population in the USA supported the idea of interracial marriages).

      1. anon Of course the key here being that Clarence Thomas has himself conveniently avoided reference to Loving v Virginia because he is black and his wife is white. Should be very interesting to see what happens if his cohorts want to go after him (et al) for that.

Comments are closed.