BRAKING NEWS: All the latest from the world of motorsport

Supercars series leader Brodie Kostecki has delivered a swipe at his Ford rivals after another clean sweep by the Chevrolet Camaros in Tasmania.

Daniel Ricciardo has declared he should be feeling “ready to go” for a return to a Formula One seat by the end of the year.

In comments that will excite Australian F1 fans, Ricciardo said his hunger was building for a comeback to the grid but he wanted to make sure it was “exploding out of my skin”.

Sitting out the 2023 F1 season after taking up a role as Red Bull’s third driver after losing his drive with McLaren, Ricciardo said watching on at the Australian Grand Prix had helped fuel his appetite to get back behind the wheel full-time.

“Being at the racetrack in Melbourne and even during qualifying I noticed my leg was tapping,” Ricciardo said in an interview on Red Bull’s YouTube channel.

“I was certainly starting to feel it, so yeah the hunger is still there. I know that.

“I know it’s there (the hunger to return to the F1 grid), but I want to make sure it’s exploding out of my skin.

“I think it’s getting more and more, that time will probably come, but right now it’s in a very good place where I’m not kind of regretting taking this year off.

“I’m happy, but by the end of the year I think I’ll be ready to go.”

Daniel Ricciardo watches the Melbourne GP. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

With his hunger back, now the 33-year-old just needs a drive.

There was speculation earlier this month linking Ricciardo to the struggling Nyck De Vries’ Alpha Tauri seat.

The rumours surfaced after it emerged the Perth racer had a fitting with the team ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.

But former F1 world champion Damon Hill shot down the suggestion, saying Ricciardo would not be interested in returning to a “middling team”.

Ricciardo has also previously stressed he doesn’t “want (just) any seat next year” or to “just start from zero”.

Speaking as he toured Red Bull’s Milton Keynes facility and was reunited with some of his race-winning Red Bull cars, Ricciardo said racing remained his passion but was comfortable with the path he had taken for this year.

“I’m certainly comfortable with where I am currently at,” Ricciardo said.

“Of course racing is my passion. I would love to go through what Max (Verstappen) and Checo (Sergio Perez) are feeling – that excitement, that adrenaline and all those emotions, but I’m in a place where I feel like it’s all happening at the right time for the right reason.

“It also filled me with more understanding of what I would do if I was to jump back in a race seat.”

Supercars series leader Brodie Kostecki had some strong words for his Ford counterparts. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

PARITY PUT DOWN

Series leader Brodie Kostecki delivered a swipe at his Ford rivals still making noises about parity after another clean sweep by the Chevrolet Camaros in Tasmania.

After falling short of a podium on Saturday, Tickford Racing star Cameron Waters lamented he felt like he was “in a gunfight with a knife at the moment” fighting against the Camaros.

Waters was the only Ford driver to qualify in the top-10 and the only Ford to finish in the top eight for Saturday’s opening sprint race.

The Fords failed to score a podium for the weekend at Symmons Plains as the Blue Oval’s winless start to the year continued.

But Kostecki said after Sunday’s first race that Waters, who had finished fourth, had “plenty of pace in that Ford Mustang”.

Asked what he thought about how the Fords were performing on-track compared to the Camaros after Sunday’s final race, Kostecki quipped:

“Cam was P1 in all the straight sectors I’m pretty sure and he ran into another Ford every qualifying session,” Kostecki said.

“I don’t really know how they can complain about parity when they keep running into each other.”

Kostecki was referring to Waters’ run-ins with Dick Johnson Racing drivers Anton De Pasquale and Will Davison during Sunday’s two qualifying sessions.

Waters made nose-to-tail contact with De Pasquale in race 11 qualifying, before swiping Davison in the following qualifying session for race 12.

The Erebus Motorsport team have been riding high to start the season. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

CHAMPIONSHIP CHALLENGE

Erebus Motorsport chief executive Barry Ryan says his team can “100 per cent” fight for this year’s Supercars championship, adding he hopes the team’s hot form has powerhouse Triple Eight worried.

The Melbourne-based Camaro squad has Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown sitting first and second in the Supercars championship after an impressive round in Tasmania.

Brown won two of the three sprint races, while Kostecki also bagged two podiums and the team swept every pole position.

Ryan said Erebus, which also leads the teams championship, had shown it could perform at a range of tracks allowing the squad to take “bigger swings” as the season goes on to set up a serious title challenge.

“We just ticked another box this weekend at another style of track so it’s good to have some confidence, now we can go to most tracks or most styles of track and know that we should be competitive,” Ryan said.

“Then we can start finetuning the car more and take bigger swings and try to find the ideal set-up.”

Asked if Triple Eight should be worried about Erebus early strong form, Ryan said:

“I hope so,” the Erebus team principal said.

“They will bounce back, Broc (Feeney) is doing an awesome job and Shane (van Gisbergen) is always going to be there because he is a champion.

“We’re definitely not thinking we can beat them every weekend, but we’ve got a pretty good lead (in the championship) now. You don’t really want to talk (about) championships yet, we’ll worry about that at the end of the year, but we’ve got a good lead that we can protect.

“So we can have a few little misses here or there but hopefully we don’t and we can keep targeting that top five. If we can target the top five every race, we will be there at the end.”

Riana Crehan will hang up the microphone for a period as she prepares to welcome her first child.

BABY BREAK

Supercars presenter Riana Crehan hopes to make a return to pit lane for the endurance rounds later this year after the arrival of her first child with driver husband, Will Davison.

The pit lane reporter will hang up the microphone temporarily, confirming the weekend’s round at Symmons Plains would be her last before the baby’s arrival.

Crehan did not want to reveal the baby’s due date, other than to say it was “definitely soon”.

“This will be my last race,” Crehan said.

“It puts me in two minds, obviously I love coming to work and love coming to the racetrack, but it’s time to start putting the feet up and getting ready for the next phase of our life.

“When I think about it, a pregnant lady walking pit lane, reporting on motorsport is probably something that hasn’t happened a lot.

“And we are very fortunate that I have been able to do that and incredibly fortunate that Will and I are in this business together.

“It’s a pretty cool story that we will be able to tell our future son or daughter what their parents got up to whilst the baby was getting carried around the country.”

Crehan hopes to be back reporting on the pit lane action for the Supercars endurance season, which kicks off with the Sandown 500 in mid-September.

“I’m really hoping to be back for sure, but obviously that all depends on how everything goes,” Crehan said.

“As long as the baby is healthy and I’m healthy, I definitely would like to be back for the enduros and then we’ll get through the rest of the year.

“I don’t want to put a full stop on anything yet and let’s just hope that everything is OK and then we will look at coming back to work.”

Crehan and DJR veteran Davison announced in February they were expecting their first child.

Originally published as BRAKING NEWS: All the latest from the world of motorsport