“I NEVER HAD ANY PERSONAL DOUBTS. I STILL HAVE IT”

DANIEL RICCIARDO IS ONE OF THE FEW PROVEN WINNERS ON THE FORMULA 1 GRID. IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE HE STOOD ON THE TOP STEP FOR A SHOEY, BUT HE KNOWS HE CAN STILL DO THE JOB

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IT SPEAKS VOLUMES FOR the frequency and authenticity of Daniel Ricciardo’s famous smile that Formula 1 has still seen plenty of it since May 27, 2018.

That was the day he won the Monaco Grand Prix for Red Bull – his seventh F1 triumph. It was a race of redemption for our man Dan, after he had painfully missed out on victory in the same race two years earlier. Leaving Monaco that year, he was very much within touching distance of the championship lead – third behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, with more than double the points total of team-mate Max Verstappen.

Come the end of the season, Ricciardo languished in sixth, bottom of ‘Class A’ by 77 points. Verstappen had won twice after Monaco, but Ricciardo had done no better than six fourths, his summer and season run-in dogged by nightmares. Yet there was a strong undercurrent to the second half of that season: Ricciardo’s decision to leave Red Bull and join Renault for 2019.

That really tough call was largely about striking out on his own path from the team and organisation that had brought him through to the F1 ranks and all of those wins (and getting away from ‘Verstappen’s squad’?), with a hefty salary increase added in...

But the first season of Ricciardo’s Renault relationship was not particularly happy. The team finished fifth in the constructors’ championship – down from the fourth it had achieved the year before. The RS19 produced inconsistent downforce levels through long corners, as the team struggled to understand how to cope with the disrupted air passing down the car behind the front wheels.