Formula One: Daniel Ricciardo has dodged a bullet by not ending up at Ferrari, says Mark Webber
It was the mouth-watering Formula One move Australian fans craved — Daniel Ricciardo to Ferrari. But Mark Webber says the Australian star may be fortunate it never happened.
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Mark Webber has suggested Daniel Ricciardo may have “dodged a bullet” not ending up at Ferrari, expecting the performance of the famous Formula One team to come into sharp focus in the next year.
Describing Ricciardo’s impending move to McLaren next year as a “good step”, Webber said the Perth racer had potentially avoided more performance woes by stepping into a seat in an orange car instead of red for 2021.
Before the F1 seat shuffle began during the COVID-19 shutdown, a Ricciardo move to the Prancing Horse had been speculated in a shift that many Australian Formula One fans had coveted.
But Ferrari signed Carlos Sainz as a replacement for the departing Sebastian Vettel, with Ricciardo taking the Spaniard’s seat at McLaren after his two-year deal at Renault finishes at the end of this year.
Webber felt the Ricciardo move to McLaren was a positive one and said, while many had wanted a Ferrari move, it wasn’t a bad thing it didn’t happen.
“I think it’s a good step. Only Daniel knows all the technical reasons around and environment of why that is going to be a better move for him from Renault,” Webber told the In the Fast Lane podcast.
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“I think the Mercedes engine is something that is attractive to him going to McLaren and Andreas (Seidl) who I know well the new team principal there, too, from Porsche. He is a very organised man and he is putting the team in a very good position now.
“Daniel will be happy looking at McLaren’s performance right now, that’s something that he’ll seek a bit of comfort from, which is great to see. Lando (Norris) has done well in Austria, brilliant drive (to get) on the podium with the fastest lap on the last lap to get Lewis by a few 10ths I think … so there was great emotion around that.
“So, Daniel, I think it is good for McLaren, good for him. I think we all wanted the Ferrari thing to happen, but for some reason it still didn’t.
“But maybe he has dodged a bullet with performance anyway.”
In F1’s return, Ricciardo failed to finish the race after suffering a loss of power, while it was an encouraging Grand Prix for McLaren with third (Norris) and fifth (Sainz) finishes.
While Ferrari young gun Charles Leclerc finished second behind Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in the Austrian Grand Prix when F1 made its long-awaited return last weekend, Webber said the result covered over some performance cracks. Vettel was 10th.
“If that was a normal green flag race, I think Ferrari still would have got absolutely belted, there is no question about it,” Webber said.
“Mercedes was cruising out the front, but the safety flag brought them back into play, had a pit stop with Charles and he drove really well, he definitely squeezed everything out of it as we’ve seen him do in his short career, which is good to see.
“The pressure is on the team. I strongly believe whoever we put in that car for the next six to 12 months, it’s still the performance of Maranello that’s going to be in question, not the drivers’ performance.
“But the Italians love to blame the drivers, we know that.”
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Webber said he was surprised Vettel was not offered a new deal at Ferrari, but did not believe his career was over yet.
“I still think he has a chance to get something in 2022, I mean who knows, maybe ’21 at Red Bull. You never know,” the nine-time Grand Prix winner said.
“I think he needs to get the energy and reinvent himself and sort of de-Maranello his mind in terms of trying to get that energy back in … get into a different environment that he loves.
“I think he is still going to be on the grid in the future … whether that’s ‘21 or ’22, I think he still has a bit left in him.”