Saturday, 2 August 2014 00:00
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Daniel Ricciardo is refusing to rule himself out of the hunt for this year’s Formula One world title until the mathematics say otherwise.
Other than Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, Ricciardo is the only driver to have taken the chequered flag this season.
But despite the Australian’s second victory in Hungary on Sunday, to add to his maiden win for Red Bull in Canada in early June, Ricciardo appreciates the championship is for one of the Mercedes duo to lose.
Daniel Ricciardo
“There are obviously a couple of opinions,” said Ricciardo. “When maybe some of us say it (the title) is over, it’s just purely looking at the performance of Mercedes. On a normal weekend with normal conditions on pretty much all circuits, they’ve been dominant.
“Days like Sunday, with some changing conditions, some safety cars, it helps us keep our nose in the fight. As we saw, the win was up for grabs and we took it. If you look at it, I closed in on the championship, but realistically we’re still a long way off. But Seb (team-mate Vettel) is right in saying until it’s mathematically over it isn’t.”
Ricciardo currently trails Rosberg by 71 points and is 60 adrift of Hamilton, with 225 to play for given the controversial double-points system for the final race in Abu Dhabi.
“With the system they’ve applied this year, it’s still going to be pretty open until late on in the season,” added Ricciardo. “We’ll just keep doing what we can. It doesn’t really change the approach in any case. If we’re in it or not, we still race for the highest position possible.”
