There’s a point at which everyone who works in F1 – driver, engineer, mechanic, caterer, whoever – gets over the winter where cabin fever sets in.
With just a couple of days to go until the covers come off the RB13 and testing begins, Daniel Ricciardo is at that point.
He said, “I’ve missed race weekends – the F1 circus. We got to the end of the season and it was like: I’m done with this for a while – give me a holiday.”
“But now we’re coming up to the start of the year and I’m hungry for that again. Everyone’s posting videos and photos of their training in the off-season but now let’s do our talking on the track and see what happens!”
That process starts on Monday when the wheels of the brand new RB13 are turned in anger for the first time. So how does the race-hungry Aussie view the upcoming campaign?
This pre-season interview with the Honey Badger reveals all, including his views on the importance of testing, why the new generation of cars “look like the fastest cars in the world”, how his goal is to be “on the top step enough times that come October it puts me in the fight for a title” and why he has absolutely no clue what F1’s new rules are about: “I just get in the car and drive it. The tyres are wider?”
Yes Daniel, the tyres are indeed wider…