Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo thinks it’s time that Formula 1 levels the playing field as he thinks that the current F1 machinery is far too focused on the car, rather than an even combination of the two.
Surprisingly he felt that Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton may not have won as many championships as he might have, had he been driving another car.
"Lewis [Hamilton] has won three of the last four championships, but if he was in a midfield team, he wouldn't have three of the last four championships," Ricciardo said.
"The car is a big part of it, but you need to be a good driver to get the equipment to the top. You need both. It's still a bit more dominant with the car than the driver – I'd say maybe 75 per cent to 25 per cent.”
Clearly miffed about the long term dominance that the Brackley squad has enjoyed over the rest of the field since the introduction of the new 1.6 litre V6 turbo engine regulations four years ago, Ricciardo feels more should be done to show the drivers’ talents as well as those of the engineers building the cars.
"If we make it a bit more equal by bringing the driver in a bit more and taking the equipment out, then that would be better. A 50/50 would be something more realistic in the near future, and hopefully that's the case.”
He also feels that with the current machinery, the dichotomy between the front of the grid and the back, does little to show how closely matched the current driver roster actually is.
"Even from Lewis to the guy that's coming last, maybe the lap time says three seconds, but [between] the driver's it's maximum a second. We are all a lot closer than that, and it would be great if we could all stay within one second with the equipment because then the racing would be pretty fun.”
But notwithstanding his obvious advantage in driving for the current dominant F1 team, the Aussie was still keen heap the praise on Hamilton despite his string of championships over the past four years.
"Lewis, even if with the best material, he still had pressure and expectation, and he's had that since he started F1 ten years ago," Ricciardo said. "I think he's always been on a very high level, and he's also got a lot of other distractions in his life, and can still perform when it counts. I respect him and take my hat off to him – as a driver, he is very competitive."
