Daniel Ricciardo cheekily put himself just ahead of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton as Formula 1’s top driver for 2020.
Of course this year, the Renault driver has enjoyed strong success, claiming two podiums en route to fifth in the Drivers’ Championship in what turned out to be his last year at the French manufacturer before joining McLaren in 2021.
But there was a bigger point the 31-year-old had in choosing himself for the accolade, despite being a typically Ricciardo thing to do.
“I don’t think it’s that obvious, because I think a lot of people stepped up this year,” Ricciardo said when asked to name his top 10 drivers of the year on the Australian GP In the Fast Lane podcast.
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“I mean the Mr Consistent at the top, of course, is your Lewis Hamilton. So he’s going to be there, whether it’s first, second, he’s going to be there.
“Then you go down to Red Bull and Max is always there. So he’s in contention.
“The way Charles [Leclerc] got that Ferrari doing things this year, but then again I feel like probably Charles made more mistakes, so I wouldn’t put him there.
“Yeah, probably myself! After all that. It’s hard not picking yourself, but it’s also hard picking yourself because you sound like a bit of a douche.
“Put it this way, I would put myself, Max and Lewis in the top three, but I’d sneak myself a nose in front.”
Interestingly, on Monday, F1 actually announced the top 10 drivers of the season as voted for by the drivers, with Hamilton, Verstappen and Ricciardo the top three in that order, so perhaps Daniel wasn’t so tongue in cheek after all!
The full top 10 was:
| Driver | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton |
| 2 | Max Verstappen |
| 3 | Daniel Ricciardo |
| 4 | Charles Leclerc |
| 5 | Pierre Gasly |
| 6 | George Russell |
| 7 | Sergio Perez |
| 8 | Romain Grosjean |
| 9 | Carlos Sainz |
| 10 | Alex Albon |
Ricciardo then spoke more detailed about Verstappen and how his former Red Bull teammate evolved during their time together.
“I think he definitely did a large step of his development through 2016 and then 2017,” he claimed.
“I also felt like the new cars, when we changed to the bigger tyres and all that in 2017, having more grip actually helped him or suited him as well.
“He was already doing very well and then those cars were more for him as well.
“Everyone says he was one of the best go-karters ever, and on a go-kart there’s a lot of grip in that and I thought maybe he just does like a car that really sticks.
“So, 2017, I think already the speed was there, and then there was still the mistakes which he needed to clean up, even through a bit of 2018,” Ricciardo suggested.
“But once you clean that up, now he’s just got that high level of consistency with few mistakes.”