Daniel Ricciardo fever has hit Melbourne forward of the 2024 Components 1 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.
We sat down with RB F1 Group driver and fan favorite, Daniel Ricciardo, at Honda Australia head workplace in Melbourne for a collection of quick-fire questions.
As he closes in on his tenth Australian GP, the ever-charming West Australian opened up about his experiences racing Down Beneath, and ups and downs of a protracted profession in F1, the state of Australian motorsport, and his targets for 2024.
CarExpert: It’s Australian GP week, how do you deal with the strain and a focus on you from the native media and sponsors?
Daniel Ricciardo: I believe over time you learn to deal with it higher, extra effectively.
There’s all the time numerous pleasure, significantly when it was race one of many season and there was a lot anticipation that you might simply by no means do sufficient. There have been numerous instances the place it felt a bit overwhelming – extra simply from a workload perspective.
It wasn’t essentially the strain as a result of each race there’s strain.
Okay, right here there’s just a few extra folks cheering for me however that needs to be a constructive strain anyway.
So, it’s simply extra the schedule, managing that. That’s what we bought lots higher at through the years and now I actually can take pleasure in it greater than perhaps I’ve up to now.
If I didn’t take pleasure in it as a lot it was extra from a schedule perspective, not as a result of I don’t like being residence, it’s actually not that.
CE: Just lately you’ve talked extra in regards to the more durable instances in your profession. How do you suppose your perspective has modified from whenever you began in Components 1 to now?
DR: You undergo the highs and lows and develop as an individual. As a sportsman, but in addition as an individual.
Via the decrease days I believe you be taught a bit extra about your self as a result of all the pieces’s form of simple when issues are going effectively and also you’re successful or no matter, it’s like ‘oh yeah, life’s good’ and also you don’t actually mirror that a lot. I believe when instances are a bit more durable you have got a bit extra consciousness to mirror and see the folks round you and issues like that.
Loads of the time you’ll be able to turn out to be a bit of bit like ‘oh man, that is so powerful’ nevertheless it’s nonetheless an incredible job, it’s my dream job.
Sure, I’m aggressive and I need to do effectively, however the days that perhaps don’t go effectively I believe ‘what can I do higher?’ and I’ve most definitely bought one other likelihood in every week or two weeks time to repair it. Now I’m in all probability a bit of bit extra appreciative of all the pieces round me.
CE: The game has additionally developed lots because you began with the automobiles, the calendar, and much more media consideration in recent times. What do you suppose is subsequent, when it comes to adjustments which may occur within the sport?
DR: I don’t know. It’s undoubtedly taken off lots in the previous couple of years. The fan base and the game has grown, so many extra folks know what F1 is now, know the drivers.
From right here, I don’t know. They’re undoubtedly making a weekend a bit extra of an occasion.
I believe Melbourne has all the time achieved an important job of it, not simply having the race however having a lot extra that goes on round Albert Park and all that. I believe numerous different races now are doing that, constructing in music and issues into the occasions so I can see that going one other step.
I might simply say so long as it doesn’t take over the race, the race ought to nonetheless be the primary occasion and I believe the race ought to nonetheless be extra of a race than a present.
The present can go on round it however the race ought to nonetheless be competitors at its purest. That’s all I might hope for.
CE: With Oscar Piastri and your self on the grid we’ve bought two Aussies, which is a uncommon sight. How do you suppose we will preserve bringing Australian drivers via all the way in which to F1?
DR: I believe we’re doing a very good job.
There’s 20 of us, myself and Oscar are two of these 20 however then there’s Jack Doohan who’s a reserve driver as effectively, he’s proper on the sting and it’s so near having three of us full-time.
I believe our racing and our applications and our karting and all the pieces is basically robust in Australia.
Having Oscar that subsequent technology behind me then conjures up his technology and the one behind him. It was Mark Webber for me.
I believe that’s additionally actually influential for a child to understand a dream and attempt to pursue it, having somebody’s footsteps to observe.
Perhaps a 12-year-old child can’t relate to me as a lot as they’ll relate to Oscar. He’s that subsequent inspiration for them and hopefully that cycle retains going.
CE: And the way about your targets for this 12 months, each personally and for the crew?
DR: Personally, I’m going again to a weekend like Mexico final 12 months, that was a weekend the place I did all the pieces I felt I might and believed I might, it was a type of weekends that I hadn’t felt shortly.
These weekends are the explanation why I’m again racing once more, as a result of I nonetheless imagine I can do it and produce on the highest degree.
That’s what I need to get again to, hopefully each weekend, however greater than much less, proper? It’s actually simply performing on the degree that I nonetheless imagine I’m able to.
From a crew perspective, sure, there are aims and targets. We had been eighth final 12 months within the Constructors Championship, we need to be higher than that, sixth can be reasonable as a goal for us.
If we might obtain that, I believe we might say it’s been a profitable season.
Thanks to Visa Money App RB and Honda for arranging our chat with Daniel Ricciardo.
