Daniel Ricciardo becomes a nightstalker in hunt for F1 title

DANIEL Ricciardo is turning himself into a vampire as he seeks to keep the F1 world title race alive.

Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo on the main straight of the Marina Bay street circuit during preparations for the Singapore Grand Prix

DANIEL Ricciardo rips the phone cord from the wall of his Singapore hotel room. Look at the digs: he ain’t slumming it.

He draws the curtains, turns out the lights. This week’s palatial residence is transformed into a darkened dungeon. The mobile is killed. The laptop is shut down. The “Do Not Disturb” sign is slapped on the door.

A digital timepiece on the bedside table confirms the ungodly hour. It’s four o’clock. In the morning. The clock is disabled along with any other flashing/beeping device threatening to wreck the silence of Ricciardo’s upside-down version of night.

Ricciardo has lobbed from Italy. Rather than adjusting to local time, stuff it, he’s kept his body clock on its European settings. The Singapore Grand Prix is tomorrow night. He’s done midnight practice runs around the Marina Bay Street Circuit. It’s been electrifying and then some. Interviews past the witching hour. Want a sit-down? No flipping wuckas. 11.40 sound OK? At night. He’s up until four every morning before climbing out of bed at the crack of 1pm.

He stumbles down to the hotel restaurant to consume breakfast while suitably bemused residents of the real world are tucking into their lunch.

“I go to bed at crazy times,” Ricciardo said. “Everything is out of whack. It’s tricky. I disconnect everything in the room, make it as dark as possible, turn it into the full dungeon. Bed is around 4am. You wake up when the sun’s out. It’s lunchtime but you have to try to go through a normal day. You’re having your eggs while everyone else is having their pasta.

“It’s a bit weird but we come straight from Europe so we don’t really have time to change our routines. It’s about not letting the dark fool you and not letting the light fool you. You’ve just got to block out the locals and everyone else and do your own thing. You’ve just got to be disciplined.”

The Marina Bay Street Circuit is this serpentine beast of a thing, 23 narrow corners on every 5km lap, an abundance of hairpins, more crashes than Jodhi Meares, the toughest examination of concentration and endurance on the F1 calendar.

Mark Webber’s Red Bull went up in flames last year; the safety car is on high alert. Dodgem cars at warp speed. Dodgem cars with V6 engines and lunatics like Ricciardo behind the wheel.

He’ll lose about 4kg in sweat. Most of the journey will be spent slamming on the brakes before gunning it close to 300km/h down the rare corridors of straight and narrow road. All of this on a dirty old grime-covered street track with a width of no more than 15m.

All of this in temperatures of about 32C. It’ll be about 42C on the bitumen. A hundred-and-two under Ricciardo’s helmet. And if the impeccably dressed weatherman on Singapore TV can be trusted, it’s going to be pissing down.

“It’s the hardest race we have,” Ricciardo, 25, said. “It’s the hottest. It’s the most physical. I’ve done some heat chamber stuff … I go into this heat chamber where they’ve got a stationary bike in there and you just pedal away. It’s basically getting your body familiar with working in this kind of heat and humidity.

“It’s punishing. But you’ve got to be careful because Singapore isn’t the place where you want to overtrain. I’ve taken a few days off because your body needs time to recover and freshen up. You’ve got to be right on the Sunday night, not the Thursday or Friday. You’ve got to concentrate. The more fit you are, the better you’ll concentrate.

“The track here is so busy — there’s no real straights that give you time to rest or think. There’s so many corners and you’ve got to be on it. There’s no time to switch off.”

Mercedes-Benz’s version of ­Seinfeld and Newman, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, lead the world championship race from Ricciardo. There’s still time for a charge. There’s still seven races on F1’s global odyssey: Singapore, Japan, Russia, the US, Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Frequent flyer points in the gazillions.

Red Bull’s cars are as nimble as these big lumps of speed machine can be and if the West Australian is going to make some late-season noise, here’s the place to start.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s game on,” Ricciardo said.

“The approach from now until the end of the year is to attack. That’s what we need to do to get close. I guess I’m expecting the ­podium. We’ve got to aim for that to stay in the title run.

“If I’m to make a prediction, I believe we’ll be the second-best team out of the box in practice. The question then will be how close we can get to them. It’s a track that will help us out. If we’re within a couple of 10ths of them in practice and qualifying, that will allow us to race properly with them on Sunday. All going well ... podium.”

Three GP triumphs for Ricciardo this season. He nailed Seinfeld and Newman in Canada, Hungary and Belgium. Is this not Australia’s sportsman of the year? He’s thumped his stablemate, the four-times world champion Seb­astian Vettel, to be the only possible threat to the Mercs.

Vettel polished off his salmon and prawns in the Red Bull hospitality tent the other night — he ain’t slumming it, either — before offering praise for the bloke stealing his thunder.

Relations are more cordial at Red Bull than they were during the Vettel-Webber era.

As Ricciardo’s predecessor screamed into his headset when he won Silverstone: “Not bad for a No 2 driver!”

“Seb and I are acting the same towards each other as we were back in January and February,” Ricciardo said yesterday. “I can’t say he’s changed after I’ve gotten the better of him so far.

“He hasn’t held any of that against me. He’s still been very respectful. Every victory I’ve had, he’s come up and said well done. If he hasn’t been there, if he’s had to shoot off somewhere, he’s sent me a message and said well done.

“I respect him for that.

“As far as teammates go, it can’t really get too much better.

Red Bull bosses are refusing to tell Vettel to nick off by letting Ricciardo pass him at Marina Bay to keep the world title alive, despite the fifth-ranked German being at virtually impossible odds to finish the season at No 1.

“There’s no team orders. At least not yet,” Ricciardo said. “While both of us are still mathematically alive, we’re still allowed to race and do what we can. If one of us is knocked out before the other, perhaps they’ll think about trying some team orders.

“Would I rather have the orders now? Yes and no. Not to sound too confident, but I’d like to not have to rely on it. I’d rather not have to rely on Seb moving over for me.

“If anything, it makes me more hungry to be in front without needing any help. It’s nothing against him or the team. It’s just the way it is.

“We race properly. It’s fair. And it’s not like if he helps me out, I’m definitely going to win. We’re long shots. We need a bit of luck more than we need small team orders. Whoever’s in front should be allowed to stay in front.”

The Marina Bay Street Circuit paddock was humming on Thursday night: Robbie Williams is in town and everyone wants a ticket to his gig; J-Lo is in town and no one wants a ticket to her gig; the beautiful people are in town and Ricciardo is one of them; the rich and famous are all in town and Ricciardo has become one of them.

He was fist-bumping anyone and everyone in his path, kissing cheeks, cracking jokes, pulling another all-nighter. Finishing an interview with an American broadcaster, Ricciardo shouted at a middle-aged reporter, “Peace out, homey!” Flick the switch. We’ve got a live one here.