Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Shanghai International Circuit, 2018

Wolff impressed by “efficient” Ricciardo

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Quotes: Dieter Rencken

In the round-up: Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff praised Daniel Ricciardo’s attacking drive to victory in China.

What they say

Wolff was asked if Ricciardo was an attractive option for Mercedes’ F1 driver line-up for 2019:

Daniel is one of the very good drivers and he proved it [in China] again. He was very efficient, he was able to wait for his opportunity, he was aggressive when it was needed. Overall a very good race for him. Maybe the manoeuvre on Valtteri [Bottas] was a bit brutal but it proved to work. But he had Valtteri helping him with that to avoid a collision. But that is racing and great.

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Comment of the day

Much has been written about whether Liberty Media are running F1 better than their predecessors, but whether they keep classic tracks like Spa and Suzuka will tell us a lot about their priorities:

This above all could be the defining moment for the future of F1.

If these two tracks aren’t retained, or fail to sign new deals because the price is way too high to be viable, then we have a serious problem.

If Liberty just adopts the “well, too bad for them” attitude and substitutes in some races in the US and Latin America, we’ll be looking at the beginning of the end in my opinion.

I certainly will be forced to change my viewing habits to accommodate the time difference and will more than likely not bother with some. I can manage a couple of late night/early mornings each season but not if the ratio goes way higher.
DB-C90 (@Dbradock)

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Keith Collantine
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51 comments on “Wolff impressed by “efficient” Ricciardo”

  1. In regards to the Comment Of The Day – Oh boohoo for the European viewer. Spare a thought for viewers in Australasia or the Americas who have to put up with races outside our time zone for 90% of the season. F1 is no longer a European sport, it is a global sport and European viewers have to get used to waking up early or staying up late just the same as we have for decades now.

    1. On the East Coast of the US the TV times are pretty sweet. Bacon, eggs and coffee along with F1 is a great Sunday morning and I think I actually prefer it to when I lived in UK.

      The west coast is obviously a not quite as good but they are usually more worried about avoiding gluten and vaccines anyway.

      1. As a gluten-free west coaster we also worry about mirror-free halos and trouble-free PVRs

      2. Brazil’s timezone is close to the US East Coast, and since the 70’s “Sunday Morning” means Formula 1 for the motosport fan. In fact, during Senna’s career, Sunday Morning meant Formula 1 for most of the brazilian audience. Amazingly, the Brazilian Grand Prix, during lunchtime, seems stranger!

      3. I’m with you there. The east coast 8 AM start times have always been my favorite. Race is done and dusted by 10, then I can get on with the rest of my Sunday. Perfect!

      4. Yeah, 5:10 am Sunday morning is a great time to watch a race and have a beer. We here in Seattle love it.

      5. @fletchuk I’m jealous! Writing off a Sunday for F1 is part of the routine, lights out around 8(:10)AM and done by mid-morning would be ideal especially in Spring/summer.

    2. Time wise its New Zealand and West Coast USA (plus Hawaii!) that have it the worst, but viewing wise its New Zealand and Australia given its late Sunday night/early Monday morning viewing.

      Most races in the past for NZ have started at 12am MONDAY morning, but with the new start times for the European races that will now be 1:10am. The new start time means races in West Coast USA start at 6:10am (instead of 5am) but luckily for them that falls on a Sunday morning.

      From experience, if you’re a New Zealander and you follow Formula 1 every second or third Monday is horribly horribly unproductive.

    3. @macca yeah, accomodating your schedule for odd-timed races is a normality for everyone outside Europe… they have it easy.

      That said, I rather get up early to watch a race at Suzuka than anywhere else… please, please, please Liberty, retain those races, not because of our bedtime schedule, but because they essential to F1!

    4. speaking as someone from ‘the Americas’ (Brazil), I quite like the schedule for the European timezone, cause watching the race makes for an amazing lazy sunday morning… ;)

      but in the end, you’re right: if F1 is to be a global sport, someone will get the short end of the stick. probably, what Liberty needs to do is decide what markets are more important to them and try to suit most races (not all!) according to these markets.

    5. As an Australian I’ve always liked the (normal) 10pm race start time for the European races, means I can have a full weekend and then the F1 race is the cherry on top. Would love more races in this timeframe.
      But even the minor change to a standard 11:10pm start is starting to push the envelope a little – it means bedtime is now guaranteed to be close to 1am, rather than before midnight normally – I’m lucky I’ve got a flexible job that will let me start after 9am on Monday so I can still get a decent sleep, others aren’t so lucky.

    6. Except I’m Australian :)

      1. Couldn’t care if your from Antarctica, my comment was directed at you.

    7. Early starts have never really bothered me, if suzuka goes though, I wouldn’t be bothered, if doesn’t offer up great racing. I’d hate to lose spa though

    8. @macca with F1 being a global championship, being from the UK, I personally have no issues with having to accommodate races timed of different countries, but I do believe that keeping the classic tracks/venues like Spa, Suzuka and Silverstone is paramount! Most new tracks just don’t cut it (with the exception of COTA in Austin)

    9. Agreed, American here, it’s an issue for some of the overseas races. Though it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Most race weekends I don’t have the time to watch anyway, sleep is precious with a 6 mo old… If I catch em, I catch em.

      1. 8 mo old in my household. I haven’t been able to watch a rice live yet.

  2. @macca agree with you there..been watchin f1 since 81 mostly late at night and work the next day so suck it up europe

  3. A couple of things. Firstly I cannot fathom the comments about Danny’s pass on Bottas being ‘brutal’. As I saw it Bottas moved in the braking zone once Danny had committed to the inside. If anyone was about to cause a crash it was him, not Danny. A great pass!

    Second the Indycar stats. I’ve grown to love Indycar in the past three seasons and the racing this year is great. The race which was delayed this past weekend however showed something. Newgarden was able to dictate the pace from the front as he was clearly the fastest guy out there. All of the passing occurred behind him. So the new package they have allows drivers to pass more easily on the proviso they are faster. It will not reward a slower driver, and the fastest guy wins. Which is the whole point after all.

    All this talk from Steiner about ignoring the 2018 Indycar ideas as F1 should not become a spec series shows he misses the point. No one is saying to run a spec F1. But to change how much of the aero grip comes from the wings compared to the floor, which is what Indycar have done, seems to work. To ignore that as an option for F1 in order to improve the racing simply because Indycar did it first would be stupid.

    1. Good points. Now if BOTH series would just remove push-to-pass, DRS, fanboosts etc..

    2. It is ‘brutal’ when Ricciardo himself saying he’s not even sure it would work (in the podium interview). Ricciardo shows superb braking there, but it only work because Bottas ultimately left the door open (he still entitled to close the door if he wants to because it won’t violate the one move rule). Good for them that Bottas is driving with cool head. Why bother protect the position that he certain to lose in couple corners ahead anyway and ultimately only destroy his tires more.

      1. That’s more a ‘forcing the other driver to let you pass’ instead of an outright pass. Still it worked as Bottas did the right thing and left space, great space awareness from him. Many drivers lower on the grid would probably have taken the apex anyway and been walking away with Ric getting penalty for causing a collision… But it didn’t happen and we had a fair drive.

      2. What door left BOT opened there?! I agree it was partially still open, but he closed it pretty much completely, he moved 2 times to the inside. Just look at the replay, he’s not on the racing line, so another proof he tried something. Closing the door completely the way he did it – last moment, in the braking zone – would have meant a crash OR compromised completely the acceleration out of the corner. I think BOT move was on the limit too, still fair, also keeping enough chances to defend beyond that corner in case RIC’s move would have failed.

  4. Michael Ward
    26th April 2018, 1:08

    I second that, been watching for years and even the races that do happen near our timezone get started so late it might as well had been in Europe. F1 is a World championship in name only, almost all the teams are based in England, Entry is restricted to a small approved list of entrants and the race times are suited to the brits. They want more viewers but they’re ignoring big parts of the world.

    1. Nearly half the teams are based outside of the UK (Sauber, Haas, Toro Rosso and Ferrari), so saying “almost all the teams are based in England” is something of an exaggeration. Claiming that the race times are “suited to the brits” is misleading given that the times are set for the European region as a whole, since most of Europe is only an hour ahead of the UK.

  5. Wait, Hanoi!? And what about that New Jersey race we spent two year reading about?

    1. They must’ve lost some men to the Jersey Devil.

  6. From the Washington Post article:

    arrange them in three geographical segments: Asia, Europe and the Americas. Bratches said the Europe-based races would stay in middle of the calendar, with Asia or the Americas opening or ending the season.

    He said their positioning had not been decided, and getting this done will be slowed by current contracts that mandate specific places on the calendar for several races. This means eventually that all the races in Asia would be run together, as would races in Europe and the Americas.

    This is the logical thing, on the surface. Obviously Abu Dhabi is paying to have the last race, it’s in Bahrain’s contract that Abu Dhabi cannot be too close, and Australia is paying to have the first race but needs to be paired with an Asian round, preferably Bahrain (not contractually, but otherwise it’s bad logistics as Dieter explained in his article yesterday). Presumably these are the biggest existing contractual hurdles to getting the calendar arranged in three blocks.

    Abu Dhabi seem happy to pay a lot more to be last, Australia are as happy to be first as the people in youtube’s comments. If they offered the similar money for similar agreements in their next contract, would FOM say no, to improve logistics?

    I don’t know what other contracts are currently in place, but what might work in the future might be Australia and Bahrain, then the American rounds, Europe, then the rest of Asia

    1. @strontium ”Australia is paying to have the first race but needs to be paired with an Asian round, preferably Bahrain” – An Australia-Bahrain double-header is more or less entirely out of the question as the distance (by air) between them is a significant 12,121.52 km, so it would be a bit too big challenge logistically to get the all the equipment from Melbourne to Bahrain in time within a mere few days. Yes, the Brazilian, and the Abu Dhabi GPs have once taken place on back-to-back weekends (2010) even though the distance between them is approximately the same as the Melbourne-Bahrain distance, but the crucial difference here is that those two races take place at the end of the season rather than at the beginning as opposed to the Australian and the Bahrain GPs.

      1. Actually it’s quite easily done if testing is done there pre Melbourne.

        It’s not unusual to ship gear to two venues at once. They’d leave a lot in Bahrain after testing, go to Melbourne and would ship the majority of their Melbourne gear back to base or the next venue after Bahrain.

      2. @jerejj What difference does the end of the season make?

        1. Although it has just occurred to me, maybe Australia and Singapore could go back to back, like they used to do with Malaysia

        2. @strontium From what I’ve been informed it’s that later into a season all the equipment (the equipment that the traveling teams don’t carry with themselves from venue to venue) will already be in place so that it’s easier to move between two very distant venues than very early in the season. That’s how I understood it when I questioned why the Australian and the Chinese GPs couldn’t take place on back-to-back weekends (they initially were scheduled to take place on successive weekends in the first provisional race calendar for last season) for logistical reasons, even though their distance is similar to the Montreal-Baku one, for example, and I was explained it to be because of what I pointed out above, so, therefore, if an Australia-China double-header couldn’t work at the beginning of the season, then how could Australia-Bahrain very early in the season work any better since the distance from Melbourne to Bahrain is significantly greater (12,121.52 km by air) than the distance to Shanghai (8,057.38 km by air).

          1. @jerejj I see, that makes a lot of sense. I guess what they may have to do, if Australia were to remain the first race, is have it on its own at the start of the season. At least that would get the longest logistical movement over with straight away

  7. They don’t need a Vietnam race…..horrible idea. Go back to India if they have to or just leave it be and stop looking to add races in unimportant spots.

  8. From the Washington Post-article: ”The Canadian GP this season is run in the middle of the European swing, separated by four months from the other races in the Americas — the United States, Mexico and Brazil.”
    – There’s a very valid reason for that, though, and it’s called the climate.

    1. Indeed, I think people might be forgetting what Austin is like in June, or Montreal in late October… neither one would be pleasant for the majority of spectators.

      1. @exediron Precisely. The temperatures in Austin can get unpleasantly high in June (especially from the middle of the month onwards). Perhaps very early-June could still work for COTA, but not really any further into the month, while Montreal gets unpleasantly cool/cold for F1 in October especially in the second half of the month. The inaugural 1978 race is living proof of that, and that race even took place early in the month as opposed to the US and the Mexican GPs these days.

  9. I never get this obsession with quoting the number of passes with no context, as if the quantity of overtakes alone made a good race. How many of those were due to a car running off track? How many were on wildly differing tyres? How many were backmarkers being passed by the leaders?

    Just quoting the number of overtakes is like saying how great a hockey game was because the number of shots on goal was so high. It doesn’t tell you anything about how good the game actually was, or if most of those shots were real scoring chances.

    1. This. F1 is not basketball. Actually we should thank Ferrari for pushing back on this attitude recently.

      1. Good analogy, @john-h.
        And I would not even be surprised if a team that passes less scores more.

        To me ‘many passes’ reminds me of a stop-and-go traffic jam; cars in both lanes keep passing each other, but not really exciting to watch or be in.

      2. @john-h I just don’t get what ‘this attitude’ means. I’ve not heard one comment from Liberty or Brawn that they want F1 to be spec and they want mega passes per race ala IndyCar. I’m fully confident that they get that part of the ‘dna’ of F1 is that passes should be something closer to rare and special and memorable rather than dime-a-dozen like IndyCar.

        I think by 2021 we’ll see cars less dependent on clean air, but also making less dirty air to begin with, and the removal of drs. Passes will still be fairly small in number, and challenging, and they’ll be more driver vs driver than now, at least if Liberty gets their way.

    2. @exediron The “passes” number from Indycar is a bit ridiculous, it’s basically “any time a car moves past another on track”, in that it:

      a) includes passes on the first lap of the race;
      b) includes passes and repasses on the same lap;
      c) includes passes as a result of a car retiring or running off track;
      d) includes lapping backmarkers; and
      e) includes backmarkers unlapping themselves.

      F1 and Pirelli’s “overtake” definition may be a bit draconian and lead to low numbers, but at least it reflects what happened in the race.

      Source for Indycar pass calulation: https://www.racefans.net/2018/03/12/indycar-claims-366-passes-yesterdays-race-f1-averaged-22-2017/

      1. Yes I agree, the indy way is just hype and over the top promotion, more razzmatazz than substance. I hope that Liberty do not go down the same RD for F1.

      2. Just out of interest, has anyone done an equivalent count to show how many “passes” there were using the F1 formula?

  10. Would be cool if Sainz goes to Red Bull to replace Ricciardo, and Kubica can finally get that Renault seat.

  11. It is nice to see that they are trying to add some races in Asia. With the removal of Malaysia, there are only Japan, China and Singapore accessible to people from Asia, with the exception of the Middle East countries. However, the problem that I have concerning these races, is that they are ridiculously expensive particularly for Singapore, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. For China, you require Visa. I think for Japan too. Now, we want to reduce costs when spending for an f1weekend because we are staying just for a few days. Hanoi is a pretty good place for those living nearby in Asia. It is a big shame that they removed Sepang.

    1. Singapore should have cheaper accommodation than Japan in a way, and for sure traveling to the circuit is at most an hour, regardless of where you’re putting up with for the race. That way the bulk of the costs will be the air fare and tickets for the race itself.

      Source: I am Singaporean. :D

  12. So they might add mirrors to the halo?
    Good idea…and when something hits the halo (that was the purpose to impose it) the debris goes straight on the driver

  13. Vietnam sounds like an interesting one, first read about it (I think) a few years ago. Might even have seen some plans of a layout of some form (official or unofficial).

    Would prefer a ‘proper’ circuit to another street race, but the mind will be kept open.

  14. To paraphrase physics here:
    The door is both opened and closed, until you attempt the pass and find out whether the driver in front is going to leave you some space, or take the apex and make you crash into him. :)

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