Daniel Ricciardo's First Race

[Slyboogy]

Did anyone else notice, that Ricciardo was a lap down on his own team-mate, yet we were mocking Narian Karthikeyan for being one lap down in Valencia?

Ricciardo was in every practice session so far this year, so it's not as if he's had no testing what so ever, remember Kobayashi in 2009? On par, if not better than Jarno Trulli.

Another example, Christian Klien last year didn't drive the HRT once, then in Singapore put in a much better performance than Bruno Senna in a very hard circuit.

I think Red Bull are too obsessed to get him into F1...

EDIT: This was a post on another thread.

 

[EvilWhippet]

Another example, Christian Klien last year didn't drive the HRT once, then in Singapore put in a much better performance than Bruno Senna in a very hard circuit.

Lets be honest, so could Jose Lorca if you told him which pedal did what.

 

[Kamui-FastestChefInTheWorld]

Yes, but that was Ricciardo first race, whereas Karthikeyan had 8 races to be close to his teammate.

Wait till Abu Dhabi before passing judgement on Ricciardo.

 

[RasputinLives]

Yeah Sly I noticed the 70 second gap too and mentioned it in the rookie thread - however I think I read somewhere(maybe on CTA) that he had car issues which is why he fell back so quickly at the end but I might be wrong.

Bit too early to pass judge on Mr Ricciardo yet but think with the amount of hype we have around him we'll get plenty of chance to see. For me though he has to be beating Liuzzi by the end of the season though or else Red Bull are going to have re-evaluate him - or re-evaluate Liuzzi but I'm afraid no one but me seems interested in that.

I think I mentioned it before but I can think of another driver who finished last in the British Grand Prix on his debut and within 3 years he was World Champion.

 

[FB]

Daniel was struggling a little bit with the rear tyres towards the end and therefore lost a little bit of ground on Tonio and the others. But, all in all, it was quite positive with no major dramas. Daniel did his laps and finished the race, his quickest lap time was quite a good one and the problem was that he was struggling with the tyres. He has to get used to the tyres obviously, this isn’t too easy when you’ve started just one race with new tyres and the others have already thousands of kilometres under their belts

From the HRT website. One has to assume the HRT is, perhaps, not quite as good as the Toro Rosso...

 

[Slyboogy]

Even then, the man has got experience in an f1 car and was still that much behind Liuzzi, even with tyre issues which must have been causes by himself seems like a big deficit to me.

I agree though that we should hold our judgement until the end of the season but seems like a bad debut to me with no major dramas...

 

[FB]

Not going to argue with you there Sly, is wasn't a very auspicious debut. If he had a problem with the car then, maybe, okay but tyres are something he's going to have to use every race.

 

[RasputinLives]

I'd like to see him not use tyres in a race. That would be an interesting tactic

 

[Abnash24]

at least he had no major spins which is pretty good for you first gp in changing condition

 

[Dave Aston]

I think it's still too early to judge. He was quicker then Liuzzi in two of the practice sessions, for what it's worth. Ricciardo is pretty highly rated. The conditions were difficult, so I'd say he needs a few more starts before I write him off...

 

[teabagyokel]

If he's only run in FP1, he'll have only run primes, won't he?

 

[Galahad]

Autosport says that he lost time letting cars past under blue flags, and it looks like they're right. A comparison of the gap to Liuzzi follows (it's a bit cluttered, but bear with me).

The blue line is the gap between the two drivers, and relates to the left-hand axis scale. The red bars indicate the number of cars that lapped Ricciardo on that lap; the green bars the number that lapped Liuzzi. These numbers are plotted on the right-hand axis.

Enormous amounts of time are lost as the 'first wave' of leaders come past him on laps 14-19. From lap 19 to lap 34, however, with the bulk of the field having gone past, Ricciardo is able to arrest the gap and even to slightly close it (their pit stops explain the sudden jump on lap 29 and drop on 32).

As the leaders come past for the second wave, the pattern is repeated, though somewhat less strongly. By this stage the field is well spread out, and a steady stream of drivers come past Ricciardo in the closing stages. Overall it's not great, but perhaps not as bad as it may seem on paper.

 

[Galahad]

Incidentally - pedant's corner - Ricciardo wasn't lapped by his team-mate. He was just lapped once more by the winner than Liuzzi was. Conceivably the same thing could happen if the two had been only a couple of seconds apart - it all depends on where the leader happens to be crossing the line on the final lap.

 

[Brogan]

Wow!
What a great bit of analysis there G

Just goes to show you how a driver's race can be affected in so many ways.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Autosport says that he lost time letting cars past under blue flags, and it looks like they're right.

I should have mentioned this, but when I was watching the Onboard feeds for GBR it was unbelievable how fast the backmarkers got out of the way in this race. I honestly didn't see a single occasion where anybody was unduly held up. Definitely makes sense that Ricciardo wouldn't want to ruffle anybody's feathers in his first outing.

 

[jez101]

I should have mentioned this, but when I was watching the Onboard feeds for GBR it was unbelievable how fast the backmarkers got out of the way in this race. I honestly didn't see a single occasion where anybody was unduly held up. Definitely makes sense that Ricciardo wouldn't want to ruffle anybody's feathers in his first outing.

Especially Vettel's or Webber's? Do you think that is why he was so keen to jump out of the way...?

I guess "time lost while being lapped" is not one of the figures they look at when choosing drivers at RBR...

 

[RasputinLives]

Incidentally - pedant's corner - Ricciardo wasn't lapped by his team-mate. He was just lapped once more by the winner than Liuzzi was. Conceivably the same thing could happen if the two had been only a couple of seconds apart - it all depends on where the leader happens to be crossing the line on the final lap.

I think Sly like me saw the timings before the finish and Ricciardo was 70 seconds behind Liuzzi - which is almost a lap.