Ricciardo: Matter of life or death, F1 is not worth that

The wet weekend gave the sport and its fans a reality check and that is modern-day F1 cars are simply not able to race in the rain safely, and by doing so lives would be at risk.

Ricciardo did not need to look any further for proof as he witnessed McLaren teammate Lando Norris crash heavily during qualifying, conditions caught him out after he had been at the sharp end all afternoon.

Reflecting on Lando's crash and the race that never was, Ricciardo explained to 7News: "There is a change in mindsets to it all. I wasn't around in the era when it was kind of normal to have fatalities in the sport.

"I am sure it was hard to accept but because it was more regular it was kind of expected. And knowing what I know now would I have raced in the 60s? No.

"It is a sport. We like the risk but if you are talking about a matter of life or death, it is not worth that," said the Australian, veteran of 200 Grand Prix starts.

The weekend at the notorious, yet fable, Spa-Francorchamps was trecherous; W-Series were drivers were lucky to escape a huge pile-up at very wet Eau Rouge. With rain coming down on the races, it turned matters into a lottery: stay on track or risk some serious damage, if not injury or even worse.

Ricciardo continued: "We are still competing in a dangerous sport and playing on the edge of danger, but there is danger and being unsafe, and there is the extreme of having people unnecessarily helicoptered out of here."

As for criticism from some quarters that as professional drivers they should get in and do the job, He said: "The most simple response, and I am not trying to sound smart, is that it is just physics, simple physics that the car will not stay on the road. Could we go slower? I guess.

"But then the issue is because we are slow you will have some drivers who do something out of the physical realms of the car and you are going to have a bigger incident because of closing speeds. In a way, that causes more problems," added Ricciardo.