Gerhard Berger has ensured that the Visa RB team has no doubts about Daniel Ricciardo, who confirmed his skills this weekend with the 4th fastest time in sprint qualifying and finished 4th in the short race on Saturday.
“We knew Ricciardo still had the speed,” Visa RB CEO Peter Bayer told Sky Deutschland. “When we replaced the chassis of his car, it probably contributed to a more correct psychological attitude.
We spoke to Gerhard Berger by phone and he confirmed that similar situations had also occurred in his career. But now that Daniel has a new chassis, he feels more comfortable behind the wheel and drives with more confidence, so this approach has paid off.”
It is worth adding that Ricciardo has been in a relationship with Berger’s daughter for several years, and the Austrian, who once achieved 10 victories in Formula 1, has a special relationship with Daniel.
Another former Austrian Formula 1 driver, Alex Wurz, supported Gerhard Berger: “I think in Daniel’s case we knew he would still show himself. It appears he is now back in good mental health.”
Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s motorsport advisor, also explained that the Faenza team’s engineers put a lot of effort into ensuring the VCARB 01 car matched the Australian’s preferences: “We worked intensively with the settings to prepare the car taking into account its requirements. Daniel has a special driving style and now he can finally work behind the wheel as he needs to, just like he was a pilot before.”
True, a failed performance in the main qualifying of the weekend in Miami somewhat spoiled Ricciardo’s mood – he explained the 18th result by the fact that he encountered a failed set of tires.
“When I started the lap I couldn’t get the grip I needed. I don’t think anything could have been done,” Speedcafe quoted Daniel as saying. – I had the feeling that we were behind, but it wasn’t because we were poorly prepared for qualifying. Honestly the only problem is a defective set of tires.
We made no changes to the car and had no reason to regret doing anything wrong. The car has potential, but I just don’t understand what happened to that set of tires. It is unpleasant to talk about this, because my conclusions are not based on facts, but you see, I feel it when the tires do not allow you to drive as you want.
Even my engineer was as perplexed as I was. Of course I was angry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong. I think it was just a bad session.”
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.