Conclusions from the 2014 Canadian GP
Ricciardo seals his emergence as the real deal, Nico profits from another mistake, and Newey signals time on an old era
Monday 9 June 2014 19:22, UK
Ricciardo joins the elite
For once, it genuinely couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. There is unlikely to have ever been a more popular first-time winner in F1 than Daniel Ricciardo, the ever-smiling, ever-polite young Australian whose pace and personality added up to a winning combination that nobody could begrudge on Sunday night.
Ricciardo had probably already done enough in the first six races of 2014, in which he had consistently out-paced and out-scored Sebastian Vettel, the fallen tyrant of F1, to confirm himself as a star of the future. In Montreal, he was elevated to a star of the present, his status as the real deal signed, sealed and delivered with emphatic and impressive opportunism. The race might have fallen his way, but it fell the way of several others, including the World Champion himself, and yet it was only Ricciardo who took the opportunity, snatching victory out of Nico Rosberg’s grasp just a lap after passing the worn-out Sergio Perez.
What others may have choked on, Ricciardo gobbled up. This is a driver destined for greater things.
Rosberg finds lady luck an advantageous companion
In the grand scheme of things, and with 2014 yet to reach the halfway stage, Lewis Hamilton’s 22-point deficit to Nico Rosberg is significant but not yet substantial. Measured in the old money of F1’s former points-scoring system, it amounts to a modest-sounding nine points. Squared with the format fudge of Abu Double, it’s less than half the points the race victor will earn in the final race of the season. It’s troublesome, but no more than that.
Yet Hamilton ought to be troubled by the impression that momentum and luck, a sportsman’s favourite companion and sport’s most fickle protagonist, has joined sides with Rosberg. The German rode his luck on Sunday, avoiding a warranted penalty and narrowly avoiding a slidey leer into a wall as the pressure told, but he also drove with great intelligence and accuracy in the final stages to nurse his ailing car to the finishing line. According to Mercedes, the loss of straight-line horsepower in his W05 was on a par with the total power an average road car boasts.
In the final reckoning, as he registered a seventh successive podium finish, Rosberg was as much a winner as Ricciardo, claiming eighteen points over his solitary title rival on a day, and at a circuit, where Hamilton was clearly faster. Did they ever film a sequel of The Great Escape? They have now.
Rosberg is developing a curious capacity for benefitting from making mistakes under pressure. In Monaco, his qualifying error prevented Hamilton claiming a likely pole position from where victory was a near certainty. This weekend, he cracked again, and benefited again, as he missed the chicane to suddenly slip clear of Hamilton and out of the DRS noose.
Despite misinformed opinion to the contrary, the rulebook offers scope for the stewards to have imposed a penalty in the circumstances. Article 20.2 of the Sporting Regulations emphatically declares that any driver who leaves the track can only rejoin when ‘it is safe to do so and without gaining any advantage'. Rosberg’s advantage was multi-layered: not only did he gain in excess of half a second over Hamilton, but he broke out of the DRS zone just when
