Laurent Mekies, head of the Visa RB team, sees clear progress in Daniel Ricciardo’s work, although the Japanese Grand Prix ended for the Australian on the first lap after a collision with Alex Albon’s Williams.
Four stages of the season are behind us and Ricciardo still has no points to his name, while his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, reached the qualifying final on his home stage and reached the top ten of the race. But Daniel finished eleventh on Saturday, a narrow loss to Yuki, and Mekis thinks he is slowly improving.
“Daniel has been doing much better since Australia,” says the team leader from Faenza in an interview with the American radio station SiriusXM. “Even though he started back there, which is always frustrating, we saw that he showed good pace, and that gives us confidence.
Moreover, in Suzuka, like Yuki, he fought to reach the qualifying final, so this is also a positive moment. Of course, no driver wants to waste time behind the wheel of the car, and we know that every second of work on the track is important in its own way, but I am confident that Daniel will be in excellent shape in China.
Retirements sometimes happen, but he has been in Formula 1 for a long time and knows that speed is the most important thing. And he has speed.”
When Ricciardo stopped at Suzuka, the director of the TV broadcast from the Japanese circuit often showed close-ups of Liam Lawson, the reserve Visa RB driver who had quite successfully filled in for the injured Australian in five races last year and, of course, , ready to take his place again.
“Formula 1 drivers are always under pressure, at such a high level that is inevitable,” said Mekies. “But this applies to all drivers of all teams and it does not matter at all whether there is a reserve driver in the paddock or not. Liam is a great reserve rider and made a strong impression last year when he came on for Daniel.
But I don’t think our guys feel any extra pressure because of his presence. They constantly put themselves under as much pressure as possible and that is what motivates them the most.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
