Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo says he is still learning by being in Formula 1’s midfield battle, following several years as a front-runner in the championship.
Ricciardo competed for Red Bull from 2014 to 2018, taking seven wins and 29 podiums, along with third in the standings on two occasions.
For 2019 Ricciardo moved to a Renault team still fighting in the midst of the midfield pack and has mustered a top 10 finish at seven races to hold ninth spot in the standings.
“It is tight [in the midfield] and at times frustrating because sometimes a tenth puts you three or four spots back,” explained Ricciardo.
“But when you get that tenth it puts you three or four spots forward. It feels like a real battle and most of the time a person being the best of the rest feels like they actually won something on the weekend. There is that internal battle.
“It has been good; it has been fun.
“The only thing that, I don’t want to say sucks a little bit, but is not as fun is that you are more likely to get caught up in first lap incidents being right in the middle.
“That is the only thing that is, I don’t want to say out of your control, but you are put in that position more often than I was in the last few years.
“It has also allowed me to work on my lap one race craft. My race craft in general, my overtaking and that through the race, isn’t bad. But my lap one stuff, now starting in the midfield, there have been times when I have not made the best decisions going into Turn 1, and after the fact I’m like I could have done that better.
“So I am learning a bit being in the midfield. That’s cool.
“I don’t want to be here forever but for sure that is a new skill which I’m learning that I didn’t have to do so much in the last few years.”
Ricciardo has the experience of taking multiple wins and podiums but insists the “personal fulfilment” of extracting the most from a weekend is more satisfying than the final result.
“I’ll always leave a race track happy and fulfilled if I know I’ve got everything out of it,” he said.
“I won’t lie, that is heightened by taking home a trophy or a bottle of champagne, but there have also been podiums I got where I wasn’t actually completely satisfied with how I drove.
“The high will never be as high, and finishing fourth in Monza, a huge result, I still wasn’t standing on the podium, so I am not going out running around the streets naked, but as far as my personal fulfilment, that is really everything I need if I leave the track knowing I got everything out of it.”
Discussion about this post