F1 News
Ricciardo hopes to "turn things around" as he reaches major F1 milestone
At the 2011 British Grand Prix, a young Australian driver made his debut at Silverstone. 13 years later later, with eight victories, 32 podiums, and half a year sat on the sidelines, Daniel Ricciardo will (if nothing goes wrong) start his 250th Grand Prix in Formula 1 in Austria. The VCARB driver looks forward to the weekend at the Red Bull Ring.
"I’ve got many reasons to be excited about Austria: it’s my 250th F1 Grand Prix, which is pretty wild. I’m going to run a special helmet design for this weekend, which should be fun and it’s a home race for Red Bull, at the Red Bull Ring, so there’s always a lot of support there," Daniel Ricciardo began.
The Australian will be 12th driver in the competition's long history to reach the aforementioned milestone, and he will just six Grands Prix short of reaching the Top 10 in terms of most Grands Prix contested. In terms of the active drivers, only Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, and Sergio Perez have competed more times in Formula One.
Out of his 32 podiums, the Australian driver could finish in the top three once in Spielberg, in 2017. "We’ll be looking to try and turn things around after Barcelona. We don’t have much time as it’s a Sprint weekend with only one practice, so we really must hit the ground running. We’re ready for it!” the eight-time Grand Prix winner declared ahead of his special weekend.
VCARB expect a challenging weekend
The VCARB team had a challenging weekend in Barcelona. Both drivers were eliminated in Q1, and they could not make much progress either during the race, as Ricciardo finished 15th, while Yuki Tsunoda crossed the finish line in P19. The Austrian Grand Prix could also prove to be a difficult one, according to racing director Alan Permane. "The circuit is a demanding one for both car and driver with long straights, heavy braking but also some very high-speed corners. It’s a Sprint weekend, so our preparation will need to be perfect. Pirelli will bring the softest tyres in their range and one of the challenges will be to extract the most out of all three compounds over one lap during Sprint Qualifying on Friday afternoon."