‘Always punches above its weight’: Country that demolished Australia in sport in 2024
The fortunes of Daniel Ricciardo have mirrored Australia’s battle with a nation that thoroughly outclassed Australia in sport in 2024.
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Whisper it quietly, but New Zealand had a far better sporting year than Australia.
Daniel Ricciardo started the year in Red Bull’s junior team VCARB but was sacked mid-season for New Zealander Liam Lawson, who not only replaced the Aussie but last week got promoted to be Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate.
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RB team principal Laurent Mekies has come out this week, effectively apologising for not having the car in the “sweet spot” to maximise Ricciardo’s talents.
Mekies told Motorsport.com: “The question we have been asked the most was: ‘Can Daniel still produce the ultimate speed we have seen?’ I think he has on a few occasions, in Miami, in Canada [fifth place in qualifying] and in quite a few other races. So, he did produce that ultimate speed that took him to race wins in the past.
“But for the team, as for the drivers, the biggest difficulty is not to be fast one day. It’s to be fast in every race. Did we manage to keep Daniel in that sweet spot often enough? No, that’s the reality.
“I raised my hand and we raised our hands as a team, because we have a big part to play in it. And this led to what happened.”
Ricciardo recently told a fan “Nah I’m done” when asked if he had any interest in returning to F1 in 2026 as a driver for the new American Cadillac team.
Ralf Schumacher believes Lawson will “will get half a season” to prove himself alongside Verstappen. Hopefully for the Kiwi’s sake he can rise to the challenge and not join the list of Verstappen’s ex-teammates (Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Ricciardo).
Former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve criticised Ricciardo mid-season, saying the Australian was in the sport because of his “image more than his results”.
Reflecting on his comments Villeneuve told Sportscasting: “It never crossed my mind that I wanted to be proven right. It got a lot of reaction, a lot of negative and some positive.
“It got a lot of people discussing the subject openly. It’s not a question of destroying someone but you have to look at reality. I think people realised ‘Okay, Jacques has a fair point, let’s discuss it in depth’ and that happened. That’s what I’m happy about.
“My feelings wouldn’t be any different if Daniel Ricciardo stayed at Red Bull. I’m not saying “Oh, I’m happy now he’s left F1.’ I’m just glad to have brought reality to the fore.
“Daniel still has a great image and a great career, it hasn’t done him any damage. It was just a conversation about the racing industry which has got a bit sidetracked about what is important.
“It was a case of saying what everybody was thinking. It’s not about me feeling vindicated about him being out of F1 or not.
“When you do punditry, you just try to talk about what is pertinent. It doesn’t mean you’re right and it’s hard to be neutral, no matter how hard you try. We all have feelings which come out. You want to make sure you give enough food for thought and enough food to make sure discussions happen. That’s what I’m glad about.”
Kiwis outshine Aussies in 2024?
Lawson’s promotion to the Red Bull seat and Ricciardo’s F1 demise begs the question: Did New Zealand have a better year of sport in 2024 than Australia?
Cast your minds back to February and Australia’s men defeated New Zealand 2-0 in a Test series across the ditch, with Alex Carey and Pat Cummins getting the visitors across the line.
The Kiwis had a stellar campaign at the Paris Olympics too, coming away with 10 golds — a superb effort from a nation of five million people.
Australia also produced the goods in Paris, claiming a record haul of 18 golds to finish fourth on the medal tally ahead of host nation France.
Jessica Fox is universally seen as Australia’s best athlete of 2024 after winning two canoe slalom gold medals, but there’s a Kiwi flat water canoeist with an even better record.
New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington won three medals in Paris in the K-1 500m, K-2 500m and K-4 500m to take her overall tally to eight Olympic golds.
But a weekend in October will do down in sporting history for New Zealand.
In cricket, New Zealand defeated India 3-0 in a shock Test series whitewash to hand India their first series defeat at home in 12 years.
But the Black Caps were outclassed soon after at home by England, going down 2-1 in a Test series to the Poms, who appear to be timing their run to next summer’s Ashes nicely.
New Zealand broke their cricket world cup hoodoo when the women’s team, the White Ferns defeated South Africa in the final to win the women’s T20 World Cup.
The Australian women wrapped up a 2-0 ODI series win over New Zealand in Wellington, but you’ve got to win when it matters most.
It didn’t end there for the Kiwis. The Silver Ferns went into netball’s Constellation Cup as massive underdogs but absolutely demolished Australia’s Diamonds, winning three games in a row by more than 10 goals to reclaim the Trans-Tasman trophy.
On the same weekend Emirates Team New Zealand, led by skipper Peter Burling, won the America’s Cup to win sailing’s oldest and most prestigious competition for a third consecutive time.
Only Spain can lay claim to having a better weekend in 2024 when Carlos Alcaraz won Wimbledon and Spain defeated England to win the Euros.
That’s without mentioning the All Blacks beat the Wallabies twice to retain the Bledisloe Cup, continuing a 22-year stranglehold on the trophy.
“It’s incredible to see how New Zealand always punches above its weight a little bit in the international sport scene,” Burling told news.com.au.
“Amazing to get my third America’s Cup win on the board. It was a pretty special time afterwards celebrating that.”
Burling lays claim to being the best sailor in the world right now after his New Zealand team won five events in the fourth season of the SailGP league.
His rivalry with Australia’s Tom Slingsby is fierce and the Kiwis are desperate to finally win a SailGP championship after the Aussies won the first three editions of the competition.
Burling laughed that his rivalry with Burling is “friendly and not so friendly sometimes on the water”.
“I get along really well with Tom, we’re really good friends,” he said.
“To be setting the benchmark of what you can do with a SailGP team for quite a long time now has been absolutely amazing. The rivalry we had last year was crazy, just the way both teams continued to compete at the top of the leaderboard for so long. It’s great to be beating them more than the other way round for the last little bit.”
Spain pulled off a boilover to beat Australia and New Zealand in season four’s winner takes all grand final, but New Zealand look like the team so beat in season five after winning the opening event in Dubai.
“Personally, I would like the grand final to be scored like a traditional grand prix and if you look at F1, where you accumulate points over the season and it really rewards you performing consistently at every event,” Burling said.
“That’s the sign of what team has been best equipped across the year.
“But that’s not the format of SailGP. You’ve got to be ready for that 10-minute race at the end, which could be in any number of conditions.
“We’ve got a different venue for the final this season in Abu Dhabi after the last two being in San Francisco.”
The next two SailGP events are at Auckland (January 18-19) and Sydney (February 8-9), so the Australia vs New Zealand rivalry will be front of mind.
Originally published as ‘Always punches above its weight’: Country that demolished Australia in sport in 2024
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