The Time Daniel Ricciardo Played the Ultimate Mind Game
The Time Daniel Ricciardo Played the Ultimate Mind Game
Welcome to Split Second, where we ask racers to recall a split-second moment that's seared into their brain—the perfect pass, the slow-motion movie of their own worst crash, the near miss that scared them straight, or anything else—and what gives the memory staying power. In this edition, Daniel Ricciardo recalled the time he passed fellow Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas for a win by getting into his head. The Time Daniel Ricciardo Played the Ultimate Mind Game.
Daniel Ricciardo remembers the day perfectly. It was June 8, 2008, right around his mom’s birthday, and he was at Silverstone Circuit for a doubleheader in Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup: a development series for drivers striving toward the world’s top single-seater championships. Back then, Ricciardo said, his parents would attend a few races each year. If he had 12, they’d go to about three. The Time Daniel Ricciardo Played the Ultimate Mind Game.
His parents had chosen to attend Silverstone. But Ricciardo wasn’t the star that weekend—Valtteri Bottas was.
“He was dominant,” Ricciardo told Road & Track. “He was just hooked up. His team had found a great setup, he was driving well, he was on pole by like half a second, and he killed everyone in the first race.”
Ricciardo and Bottas were around 20 years old at the time, and they finished the 2008 season first and second in the Eurocup championship: Bottas’ 139 points to Ricciardo’s 136. They’d both go on to compete in Formula One—Ricciardo with Red Bull, Renault, and now McLaren, and Bottas with Williams, Mercedes, and soon Alfa Romeo—and their competitors that day included future IndyCar driver Carlos Muñoz and Formula E champion Jean-Éric Vergne.
The weekend was foreshadowing at its finest. Ricciardo, competing for SG Racing, drove a Red Bull livery similar to the one he would eventually race in F1: the brand’s iconic dark-blue scheme with red and yellow accents. Bottas held him off in a white-and-navy car fielded by the Motopark Academy team.
“The young Finn really is being touted as the next Kimi Räikkönen,” commentators said of Bottas at the time. “He’s certainly got the same dry humor. And Ricciardo is probably Australia’s greatest single-seater prospect for many, many years.
“They really are drivers who could make it all the way to Formula One.”
The Eurocup races that weekend lasted about 27 minutes each, or 15 laps at Silverstone. Bottas won the first by more than 12 seconds, while Ricciardo finished 14.6 seconds back in fourth.
With Bottas on pole again for the second race, Ricciardo figured it would be more of the same. But he didn’t give up all hope.
“I didn’t feel I was going to be in a position to win,” Ricciardo said. “But it was really hot, and Silverstone’s never hot. I felt that was an advantage, because he’s from Finland. I’m from Australia. I was like, ‘If there is any fatigue, it’s going to be on him.’”
So The Time Daniel Ricciardo Played the Ultimate Mind Game.
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