How Ricciardo's experience worked against him to continue in F1

The racing director of Racing bulls, Alan Permaneconsiders that the fact that Daniel Ricciardo Using his Formula 1 experience to 'overthink' played a role in his problems last season.

Ricciardo returned to the team [entonces conocido como AlphaTauri] in the middle of the 2023 season replacing Nyck de Vriesalthough a fmetacarpal fracture suffered while training for the Dutch Grand Prix kept him out for five races.

The Australian retained his place in the new team R.B. next to Yuki Tsunoda for the 2024 season with the aspiration of becoming the successor of Sergio Perez In Red Bull Racingreturning to the seat he once occupied next to Max Verstappen and which he abandoned at the end of 2018.

But after a series of poor performances – with, in between, a surprising fourth place on the Miami Grand Prix sprint grid – Ricciardo was finally ruled out for progression. Liam Lawsonwho has since become Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull.

When asked if he knew why Ricciardo had problems with the VCARB-01Permanente told Motorsport.com: “Honestly no.”

“I don't know and neither did he. We sat and talked, we tried to figure it out. I was afraid he was thinking too much; he was worried about the tires, that they wouldn't be able to handle speed. he was going to hit them.”

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Alan Permanente, RB F1 Team Principal

“I had the feeling that he was using his enormous experience to question things that were potentially wrong, because Yuki wasn't doing that and he was going as fast as he could and it was working .”

“It was a difficult time and then, of course, we went to Miami and Daniel was fourth on the sprint grid. And we're like, 'Ah, everything came together.' It was the Daniel that I knew at Renault.”

“You do that in the sprint on Saturday morning, then you go to qualifying in the afternoon and you're 18th. Honestly, it was a bit of a mystery.”

Ricciardo joined the Faenza team after McLaren will let him go at the end of 2022, the first year of the current regulatory era.

Lewis Hamilton He also struggled to continue his driving style with the ground-effect cars, particularly in qualifying, while the new drivers seemingly thrived. And as for whether it's a case of veterans failing to familiarize themselves with the specifics of the car, Permane replied: “I don't know, that's the honest answer. Honestly, I Don’t think so.”

“Look Fernando [Alonso] at Spa the previous year. It was huge, incredible. I know it's like that with people like [Franco] Colapinto, [Oliver] Bearman…and Franco has certainly been incredible in his first few races.”

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team and Franco Colapinto, Williams Racing

“But it's very difficult. One of the things we said at the time was that it's great when a driver comes in and does it, but doing it every week is what's difficult.”

If you look at his last weekends [de Colapinto]he wasn't that good… in Mexico he was exceptional even though he didn't qualify very well, then in Brazil, of course, he wasn't particularly good, and in Las Vegas , he didn't qualify either.

“I think maintaining that level week in and week out, for these young guys, that's where it gets difficult. They also have to do a lot of things off the track, so they can't sit down with the engineers and focus on that.” “

“There are all sorts of PR events in Formula 1 today, and I'm pretty sure these kids aren't used to them, so there are distractions everywhere. But he doesn't do any doubt they're impressive, that's for sure.”

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