As speculations continue about Daniel Ricciardo’s future in F1, the Australian delivered an outstanding performance on Friday for the Miami Grand Prix this weekend. The 34-year-old finished P4 during the sprint shootout. When asked to comment upon Ricciardo’s performances, Helmut Marko claimed that the Honey Badger received a “psychological boost” after the team gave him a new V-CARB-01 chassis.
As quoted by motorsport.nextgen-auto.com, Marko said, “The whole thing was planned from the start, as this is our third chassis that we already wanted to put on the track. But of course, this change also played a psychological role after Daniel’s disappointing performances on the previous weekends. Things went much better for Ricciardo in China”.
Superb qualifying by @danielricciardo yesterday in Sprint Quali – would be great to see him replicate it today.
Seems like the chassis change in China has done something. Teams often bat it away as just a psychological boost for drivers but he’s showing a quantifiable benefit
— Karun Chandhok (@karunchandhok) May 4, 2024
Similarly to Marko, F1 expert Karun Chandhok also believes that the new chassis has helped Ricciardo improve his performance. According to Chandhok, “Teams often bat it away as just a psychological boost for drivers but he’s showing a quantifiable benefit”.
Ricciardo got this new chassis at the Chinese GP. Before the race in China, the Aussie was quite unhappy with the balance of his car and struggled massively relative to his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.
In Shanghai, the Honey Badger performed much better and could have scored points. However, Lance Stroll rear-ended him during the first safety car restart, which resulted in Ricciardo’s DNF. Coming to Miami, the #3 driver would want to capitalize on his good start in the sprint as well as the Grand Prix later.
Daniel Ricciardo will now hope to deliver when it matters most
Daniel Ricciardo has had a fantastic start to the Miami GP weekend so far as he registered the fourth-fastest time during the sprint shootout. His lap time was just slower than the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
However, the 34-year-old will know more than anyone that his brilliant performance during the shootout will mean nothing if he cannot convert his strong starting position into a points finish. If the Australian is to score his first points of the 2024 season, he will need to finish Saturday’s sprint race in a minimum of eighth place.
His engineer’s boiling, cos Danny Ric is cooking!
Second row start for Saturdays #F1Sprint for the Aussie #F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/XYcA5qfoeQ
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 3, 2024
Ricciardo is confident that he can achieve the same. When asked if he can dream of a podium finish after starting fourth on the grid, Ricciardo replied with a smile (as quoted by planetf1.com), “Certainly. I can dream of everything!”
The Honey Badger then concluded his remarks by explaining that since it is a short race, he hopes to score a few points at the least. With the speculations rampant about his future in F1, Ricciardo cannot afford to put a foot wrong and will need to score every point he can this season, starting with the Miami GP this weekend.
