Daniel Ricciardo is focused on getting better as long-term future remains unclear

Aditya Devavrat 19:53 13/12/2017
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  • When Lewis Hamilton said at the end of the Formula One season that he, Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, and Sebastian Vettel would be the drivers to beat next year, observers quickly noticed a name he’d forgotten to mention.

    Verstappen’s boss, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was quick to set the record straight, saying Daniel Ricciardo is definitely a part of that elite group – and the Australian’s performances this season and over his career make it likely that Hamilton made an honest mistake in not including him.

    Of course, there will be no future errors from the four-time world champion if Ricciardo partners up with the Brit at Mercedes as rumours over the Aussie’s long-term future persist.

    The 28-year-old is out of contract with Red Bull at the conclusion of next season and is reportedly assessing his options as he weighs up the best avenue for silverware with Mercedes and Ferrari both possible destinations.

    But for his part, the ever-smiling Ricciardo is focusing on next season, when he’ll have plenty of chances to show he belongs.

    “I know what I want from myself in 2018,” Ricciardo said. “These are goals I wanted back in 2014. Nothing really changes.”

    While he doesn’t say it explicitly, everyone knows what that means: Ricciardo is gunning for the title.

    Mercedes’ dominance over the last few years, and Red Bull’s reliability problems this season, mean he hasn’t truly been a contender for the championship in his career, but there have been plenty of occasions when he’s shown the talent that justifies his lofty goals.

    He’s also quick to acknowledge that he’s still developing as a driver, and his up-and-down 2017 season contributed to that.

    “Through this year, there were some great days and some days which weren’t so great. I built up a list of notes from the year, what I can do to be better, to get more out of myself,” Ricciardo explained.

    “These are things that are there. I don’t need to address them in the next month. It’s not stuff I’m going to learn back in Australia. But once I get back to Europe in the new year, then these are all things that I’ll put into place to work towards.

    “It’ll all happen in due time, but for now all I’m thinking about is taking some holidays!”

    Even in a 2017 dominated by Mercedes and Ferrari, there were race weekends when Red Bull had the second-quickest car, or arguably even the quickest, only to be let down by engine performance and reliability, issues that plagued Ricciardo and Verstappen all season.

    “In the beginning of the year it was, ‘We need performance. Who cares about reliablity? We need a fast car,'” Ricciardo recalled. “We eventually got a fast car but reliability let us down throughout the whole season, early with Max, later with me.”

    “I think Lewis finished every race this year, and if we want to be in the title we need to be finishing every race.”

    If Red Bull can sort out their engine problems next season, it won’t take long for Ricciardo to show that there are five, not four, elite drivers in F1.

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