What would have been a day of redemption for the Honey Badger turned into disaster at the Italian Grand Prix.
While the F1 teams stood for a minute’s silence at the passing of the Queen, Daniel Ricciardo’s annus horribilis continued at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Her Majesty’s “horrible year” was 30 years ago when, among other setbacks, a fire threatened to burn down Windsor Castle.
Several of the F1 teams are based in Britain and seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, knighted by the Queen, lives there.
As do Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate George Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Norris finished seventh at Monza on Sunday and his teammate in Daniel Ricciardo would have finished in the points after starting alongside Norris on the second row of the grid.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe grid was somewhat reversed with teams such as Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes suffering penalties for introducing new engines and major components.
Ricciardo qualified in the top ten and would have had his best result of the year had his McLaren not shutdown suddenly on the 47th lap.
The Perth driver, who lives in Monaco, pulled the car to the side of the circuit where it sat while a safety car slowed the field.
By the time it was removed, it was too late for the race to be restarted and the field trundled past the chequered flag, to the fury of the tifosi who hoped for a Ferrari victory at the famous Italian circuit.
It was not to be as Max Verstappen in the Red Bull gave another master class following his similar victory at the previous Grand Prix among the Dutch sand dunes at Zandvoort.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was second at Monza, with Russell third and Carlos Sainz fourth in the second Ferrari.
Ricciardo was running as high as third and according to AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, who was running behind him for much of the race.
“I’ll definitely have nightmares of Daniel’s rear wing over the next couple of days,” Gasly said. “I spent I don’t know how many laps behind him, but it felt like a lifetime. He didn’t do one single mistake,” said Gasly, French and likely to take the spare seat at Alpine, the renamed French Renault works team, ahead of Ricciardo.
The Honey Badger has probably done enough to make some teams think again about giving him a seat next year inspite of finishing at the side of the circuit on Sunday.
What the future holds for the Australian is still uncertain after being consistently out performed by teammate Norris.
No one can explain it, least of all Ricciardo, who admits the car does not suit him and he finds it difficult to drive.
Ricciardo is an eight-time GP winner and should be able to adapt to the car, which Norris also admits is a handful.
But the loudest complaints on Sunday came from the emotional Ferrari fans who flooded the track and booed under the podium as Verstappen took the winner’s trophy.
The way the race finished was an unfortunate reminder of the chaos that surrounded the drivers championship at the last race of the season at Abu Dhabi in December.
Embed from Getty ImagesAnother Australian in race director Michael Masi was the cause of the race finishing in highly controversial circumstances that were the reverse of what happened at Monza.
The race was won last year by Ricciardo and is now being spoken off as carrying some sort of curse with several drivers who have won at Monza failing to finish the following year.
But while the field finished behind the safety car on Sunday, disappointing not only the crowd, drivers were also critical.
The irony of it all was not lost on Lewis Hamilton who missed a certain eighth world title when race director Masri decided to clear the unlapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen at Abu Dhabi.
“It brought back memories,” said Hamilton in a masterly understatement of the way the championship was plunged into the greatest controversy since the modern championship began some 70 years ago.
Masri later lost his job and has returned to Australia where he is expected to rejoin the domestic supercar competition.
What must be decided by the FIA is how these situations are to be resolved. The Abu Dhabi race came under the safety car when Nicholas Latifi in the Williams crashed in the last few laps of the race.
Ricciardo also crashed with only a few laps of the race to go and it would have been better in both cases for the race to be red flagged and restarted.
The race would then have been won or lost under racing conditions and not decided by a procession held back by the safety car.
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto’s wooly hair might have been standing on end after the race when he commented on what denied Leclerc a final charge at Verstappen.
“Today we had all the conditions to have a restart of the race,” said the Ferrari team boss. “I don’t know why they waited so long.
“The FIA has been caught sleeping, maybe they are not yet ready to deal with these situations.”
Binotto might also look at his own performance in recent races.
He is has presided over a series of mistakes that have robbed Ferrari of race wins, including tyre management, pit stop blunders and overall race strategy.
Ferrari chairman John Elkann, the grandson of Italian industrial magnate Gianni Agnelli, said Binotto has his support, but there must be no further embarrassing blunders.
Meanwhile, the summer silly season is in full swing over driver changes with Ricciardo even being mentioned as a reserve driver for Ferrari.
How long would he have to wait on the sidelines for either Leclerc or Sainz to vacate a seat?
Too long!
PETER COSTER is a former editor and foreign correspondent who has covered a range of international sports, including world championship fights and the Olympic Games.
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