How Ricciardo’s F1 experience played a part in his downfall

Racing Bulls racing director Alan Permane believes Daniel Ricciardo utilizing his Components 1 expertise to ‘overthink issues’ performed a component in his downfall final season.

Ricciardo returned to the staff [then known as AlphaTauri] halfway by means of the 2023 marketing campaign as a alternative for Nyck de Vries, although a damaged metacarpal sustained in apply for the Dutch Grand Prix saved him out for 5 races.

The Australian retained his seat with the newly named RB staff alongside Yuki Tsunoda for final season with the objective of changing into Sergio Perez‘s successor at Purple Bull, returning to the seat he as soon as held alongside Max Verstappen which he abandoned on the finish of 2018.

However after a spate of poor performances – cut up solely by a surprising fourth within the Miami Grand Prix dash race – Ricciardo was finally shuffled out for Liam Lawson, who has since grow to be Verstappen’s Purple Bull team-mate.

Requested if he knew why Ricciardo struggled with the VCARB-01 automobile, Permane advised Autosport: “Truthfully no.

“I don’t know and he doesn’t both. We sat down and talked, tried to determine it out. I used to be definitely frightened that he was overthinking issues – he was involved in regards to the tyres, that they couldn’t deal with the pace he can be asking of them.  

Alan Permane, Racing Director RB F1 Group

Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool

“It felt like he was utilizing his enormous expertise to second-guess issues that probably weren’t appropriate, as a result of Yuki wasn’t and he was driving as fast as he might and it was working.  

“That was a troublesome time after which in fact we went to Miami and Daniel put it fourth on the grid [for the sprint race]. And also you assume, ‘Ah, it’s all clicked.’ That was the Daniel I knew at Renault.  

“You do this within the dash on Saturday morning, you then go for [grand prix] qualifying within the afternoon and he’s 18th. It was a little bit of a thriller, truthfully.”

Ricciardo had been on the sidelines earlier than rejoining the Faenza-based outfit having been let go by McLaren on the finish of 2022, the primary yr of the present regulatory period.

Lewis Hamilton has additionally discovered it troublesome to proceed his driving model with the ground-effect automobiles, particularly in qualifying, whereas up-and-coming drivers have seemingly thrived. Whether or not it’s a case of the championship’s veterans failing to come back to grips with the automobile’s specifics, Permane replied: “I don’t know, is the trustworthy reply. I actually don’t assume so.  

“Have a look at Fernando [Alonso] in Spa final yr. He was immense, unimaginable. I do know it’s a handy factor to say with folks like [Franco] Colapinto coming in, [Oliver] Bearman… and definitely Franco seemed wonderful in his first few races.

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Group, and Franco Colapinto, Williams Racing

Picture by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Photos

“But it surely’s very troublesome – one of many issues we mentioned on the time was that it’s nice when a driver is available in and does that, however doing it each week, that’s the onerous factor.  

“When you have a look at his [Colapinto’s] final couple of weekends, he hasn’t fairly been so… in Mexico he was excellent though he didn’t qualify so nicely, then Brazil in fact wasn’t significantly good, Las Vegas not good both.  

“I feel to maintain that degree week in, week out, for these younger guys, that’s the place it will get powerful. There’s an enormous quantity they must do away from the monitor as nicely, in order that they’re not simply left to sit down with engineers and deal with that.

“There’s all types of PR stuff which comes with Components 1 now, and I’m fairly certain these younger guys aren’t used to, so there’s distractions all over the place. However there’s little question that they’re spectacular, that’s for certain.”