EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Ricciardo Interview 12 | 03 | 2015
IT'S NOT THE USUAL PLACE you'd expect to meet any Formula One driver, let alone the driver many have already labelled as "the next big thing", but deep in the bowels of the Westfield shopping centre in London, Daniel Ricciardo bowls in, surrounded by entourage and full of apologies.
"Sorry I'm late: traffic and other stuff," he explains. And before we go any further: yes, the goofy grin is genuine. The 25-year-old's signature trademark is always there, either beaming or hovering in the background ready to explode on the scene on those rare occasions he isn't already smiling.
Back to Westfield. Ricciardo, the 25-year-old Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver from Perth, is on a flying visit to promote both the team and manufacturer at the shopping centre. He's running around 20 minutes late, but once he's seated, he immediately settles comfortably into chat mode and I find myself wishing I'd brought the Ray-Bans to shield myself from his radiating, infectious smile.
"You must get tired of these media events, hopping from place to place answering a string of never-ending questions," I ask.
"The bizarre thing about our sport is that we do a lot of other things apart from racing. Racing is actually a really small part of the job," Ricciardo explained. "Sure there are a lot of media days, and loads of travelling, but it's part of the job. I think I now spend more time in front of photographers than I do behind the wheel."
No one though should interpret the popular Aussie's laid-back style and celebrity profile as a sign that he's not fully committed to his main job: winning grands prix and, ultimately, the Formula One World Championship.
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Last season, a year which was dominated by the Mercedes duo of eventual world champ Lewis Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg, Ricciardo was the only other driver to win races. Victories in Canada, Hungary and Belgium established him as the best of the rest, by a country mile.
He also, essentially, destroyed his new team-mate, four-times world champ Sebastian Vettel, outscoring the German 238 points to 167. Did that come as a surprise?
"Coming into the season I obviously knew how strong he was, but I didn't really know how strong I was," Ricciardo, who only stepped up from Toro Rosso to replace fellow Aussie Mark Webber at Red Bull for the start of the 2014 season, explained.
"I mean, I knew he wouldn't beat me by a second or anything, and I believed I could challenge him, but I wasn't sure by how much. But once the season got going and I started beating him more consistently — both in qualifying and on race day — than he was beating me, well that was very positive."
Interestingly, one of the overtaking moves of the year — perhaps THE manoeuvre of the the season — was when Ricciardo audaciously passed Vettel at Monza. And it was cool dude Ricciardo who set the fastest speed of the season, also at the Italian Grand Prix, when he clocked 362k/h. That's an eye-watering 224.9mph.
With Vettel now ensconced at Ferrari, replaced by 20-year-old Danni Kvyat, is Riccardo concerned of being upstaged by his new, younger Russian team-mate?
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"Anything's obviously possible," he smiles knowingly. "I know he's quick, so I'm not going to take him lightly, definitely not. But at the same time, I have confidence in myself and in what I achieved last year. I'm confident I can replicate that again. We'll see where Danni ends up, but I'm sure we'll be fighting at the front. Time will tell."
Time is something which is on Ricciardo's side. Still early in his F1 career, he has that intoxicating mix of panache, bravery, race craft, guile and, most of all, blistering speed.
He knew from an early age he wanted to drive fast.
"I'd watched motor racing on TV from a young age and I guess I was obsessed with speed," he admitted. "I started in go-karts. I was playing football and tennis. But nothing gave me the rush racing did."
By the time he'd celebrated his 16th birthday, he knew there was nothing else he wanted to do. He'd won everything he could in go-karts, and aged 17 was taken to Italy with the Red Bull junior team, before going on to win the British Formula Three Championship.
A test in a F1 car followed, and he made his grand prix debut with Hispania Racing in 2011, before switching to Toro Rosso.
In these four seasons, his acceleration through the grid to genuine championship contender — given the right car to challenge the expected dominance of Mercedes again this year — has been impressive. But Ricciardo believes there's no secret to his success, just a natural progression of his talent.
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"Each year I've got more comfortable and gained more experience," he said. "I definitely feel I'm learning all the time. Last year was about focusing on myself, which was important for my development.
"I had the team behind me capable of getting the results, so I knew if I could keep my concentration focused in the right direction, and do what I knew I could do, the results would come. It took more of an aggressive style of driving, but the results, and wins, proved it definitely paid off."
This weekend, Ricciardo returns to the streets of Melbourne for the traditional season-opener, 12 months after he was disqualified — his car was judged to have exceeded the maximum fuel-flow rate — hours after having celebrated on the podium. How does he reflect on the disappointment?
"I guess Australia seemed too good to be true, so when I got the disqualification, I was like, ‘it was too good to be true!," he admits matter-of-factly. "Obviously I was disappointed that night, but 24 to 48 hours after it all happened I was ready to go again for the next one. When it's not your fault, it's easier to move on."
The key question though is, can his Infiniti Red Bull challenge the dominance of Mercedes, which has already shown it will be the team to beat by topping the timesheets in final pre-season testing at Barcelona.
"I guess I'll do what I can and hopefully that can earn me some more race wins and put me in a title fight. I do believe Mercedes will have the target on them: they'll be strong. Would I like to be best of the rest? No, not really. Ideally I'd obviously like to be best, full stop," he grinned again
And with that, Ricciardo was off. Next Stop, Melbourne.
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Jim McGill
Photo Copyright: Red Bull/Getty