In a season that has been overwhelmingly dominated by the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, it may be a shock to see who is sitting comfortably in third place in the current Formula One points standings, only 64 markers out, with 200 available.
Don’t adjust your TV sets. First year Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo, in only 12 races with the four-time defending constructors champions, has remarkably been able to close the gap to the two Mercedes drivers and establish himself as an outside contender for the drivers championship with seven races to go.
The Silver Arrows have won all but three events this year. Ricciardo has been the lone exception. His champion teammate Sebastian Vettel has zero victories after a 13-win campaign in 2013, and has a best finish of third this year. To add to his struggles, Vettel has been beaten by his new teammate nine times out of 12 this year.
Ricciardo’s first two Grand Prix wins in 2014 came with a flourish. In Montreal, “Captain Smiley” managed to take advantage of Rosberg’s ailing Mercedes with three laps left to claim his maiden victory. In Hungary, it was again with three laps to go that Ricciardo shot by Fernando Alonso and his older tires to secure his second win.
Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps, Ricciardo took charge early after the Mercedes pair had controversial contact on lap two. Ricciardo passed Rosberg for the lead on lap eight and never looked back, only relinquishing the lead once to pit. The Red Bull rookie more than doubled his career laps-led tally with 36 circuits in front at Spa.
But most impressive of Ricciardo’s 2014 campaign? Recall the state of the Red Bull squad in offseason testing. The team led by Adrian Newey and his brainiac designs were just about literally in shambles. After easing to the 2013 constructors and drivers championships, Red Bull paid the price of testing and experimenting in late-season races and were scrambling to play catchup after their rivals had a head start on the new year.
In those offseason tests, while teams such as Mercedes and Williams were heading the speed charts, the Red Bulls could hardly turn a lap without some sort of mechanical failure popping up. With the new V6 hybrid engines giving the team fits and the season opener in Melbourne fast approaching, the air in Milton Keynes was tense.
In Melbourne, Vettel retired early with power issues. Ricciardo? Well, he only managed a runner-up finish in his debut with the team. Unfortunately, the podium was taken away later due to an over-indulgence in Ricciardo’s fuel consumption.
His trademark enthusiasm was never dampered, however, and Ricciardo officially scored his first career podium in Spain.
With a string of Grand Prix in which he has outqualified and outraced his defending champion teammate, the Aussie has turned the tables in a big way with three wins and three additional podiums to place himself squarely in the rearview mirror of Hamilton, who is second in points.
Who knows, perhaps by the time the double-points season finale in Abu Dhabi rolls around in late November, Ricciardo will have pulled off one of the biggest comebacks of all time and take the top step of the podium in a year full of Mercedes dominance.
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