Jacques Villeneuve continues to think that Daniel Ricciardo no longer has his place in F1. The former driver had already expressed this idea and this weekend, while serving as a consultant on Sky Sports, he reignited the debate with a question, and was surprised at the complacency of the Australian’s employers.
“Why is he still in F1?” asked the 1997 world champion. “We’ve been hearing the same thing for four or five years: ‘We need to improve the car for him. Poor him’. Sorry, no, you’re in F1. Maybe you’re making this effort for a driver like Lewis Hamilton, who won several championships.”
“But you don’t do it for a driver who’s not up to par. If you’re not up to par, go home and there will be someone else to replace you. It’s always been like that in competition There’s no reason to keep making excuses for him.”
Picked up by journalists who reminded him that Ricciardo had beaten Sebastian Vettel in 2014, Villeneuve noted that the Australian had taken advantage of a bad spiral from the German, and that he also beat Max Verstappen in a very short period of time.
“You talk about that first season, he was beating a Vettel who was burned out, who was trying to invent things to make the car win and who was just making a mess of his weekend. Then he beat Verstappen when he- He was 18 and just starting out, and that’s it. He didn’t beat anyone after that.”
Asked about the fact that Ricciardo could have been overestimated at one point in his career, and that he has still been so for a few months thanks to his past results, Villeneuve has his theory: “I think his image allowed him to stay in F1, more than his results.”
The Canadian also had fun playing the game of transfer predictions, and his theory on Mercedes is rather surprising: “Williams for [Carlos] Sainz. Nobody really wants to go to Haas. Those who don’t have a steering wheel will jump at the opportunity.”
“I think Bottas will go to Mercedes. They want a driver for one year. So who will they take? They take a driver who accepts a one-year contract, who knows the team, the experience, and who prepares the seat for Antonelli and Toto. [Wolff] will have to pay a team to put Antonelli somewhere for a year.”
