“Any Fire I’ve Got is Fuelled More” – Daniel Ricciardo is Itching to Go Racing

Renault F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo simply cannot wait for July 5th to come. At long last, the 2020 F1 season is finally commencing, with the Austrian Grand Prix.

Under normal circumstances, the F1 season would already be underway with a few races done and dusted. However, the coronavirus situation is anything but normal, so, racing in Australia or any of the next nine venues, was out of question.

Speaking to foxsports.com.au , Ricciardo admitted that the lay-off will only strengthen him further.

“I’m very confident. I’m very ready to go,” the 30-year-old said. “I was obviously going to be ready in March but this lay-off — any fire I’ve got is fuelled more which I think is quite dangerous.”

As mentioned before, if the COVID-19 situation had not gripped the world, F1 would be off to the Netherlands this weekend. Instead, every driver is stuck in different parts of the world.

Daniel Ricciardo can finally shake off his rust

Even with a set date, there is still plenty of time to kill for Ricciardo to hone his craft. So, he sees plenty of positives coming out of the delay.

“You can take the training side of it (as a positive) and not being on a plane every three days and kind of beating up your body without any training impact. So having that consistency has been good,” Ricciardo said.

“And I think when you don’t have something it reiterates how much you miss it when it’s gone. I miss the racing. I’ve been able to set some extra goals in my head, write some things down and, yeah, I want it.”

As one of many drivers out of contract at the end of this year, Ricciardo has his work cut out when racing restarts. He made a strong case for himself in the back-half of last season. He took fourth at Monza and claiming three top-eight finishes in the last four races.

There are seat vacancies for next season at Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. However, chances of Ricciardo joining the latter depend on Sebastian Vettel.