Daniel Ricciardo Explains Why the F1 Shutdown is a Blessing in Disguise

Australian F1 driver, Daniel Ricciardo confirmed his move to McLaren last month. He’ll be joining the Woking-based outfit for the 2021 season. However, Ricciardo is still very much a Renault driver for the upcoming season, which is all set to begin on the 5th of July. The enforced break due to the pandemic has given people time to think and look at their lives from a new perspective. The same also holds true for the Australian.

Daniel Ricciardo believes the enforced break has lengthened his career

Speaking to the Spanish newspaper, Marca, Ricciardo said, “We travel a lot ….and you just come in and go and go and go. But sometimes, you really don’t have a chance to stop, and somehow it was nice to be forced to stop. It was nice not to be in pressurized booths of planes all the time and all that sort of thing. Probably from a performance standpoint, Maybe it has given me a couple of more years in my career. So I see positive things in what has happened.”

This is good news for Australian F1 fans and even F1 fans in general. Ricciardo has always been a positive and happy go lucky kind of character. It’s good to know that we’ll be seeing him for a few more years. It also potentially means, that we will get to see a lot more of the much anticipated ‘new bromance’ between him and Lando Norris. That is, assuming that all things stay constant and either of them doesn’t move away from McLaren in the next 3 years at least.

However, for 2020, Ricciardo will be fully focused on Renault. He still feels that he owes them a lot and will be hoping to better his points tally from last year. He will want to leave the French outfit on a high, so if Renault can give him a good car, don’t rule out a podium finish for the man from down under.