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In general terms, not naming any names - And it isnt just reserved to this driver comparison, you see it in many others. But I asked here as this seemed to have a balanced debate going on

Of course Ricciardo is still a very good driver. That's without question and no reason to put him down if he isn't beating Max every weekend so that's why we won't do it

Each driver has their strenghts. We're halfway through the season now and Hungary will bring some more updates to the car. It's always interesting to see how that will go.

They are very talented and Red Bull is doing their best they can to keep them. I feel every team should be lucky to have either one of them so you can imagine how happy Horner and Marko are with both of them in their team.

Is Max outperforming Ricciardo? If you just look at race results in points than no. If that is all that matters than he is not.

If you look at the bigger picture you can tell that he still is developing so it is possible that at the end of the year he has even more improved. This year I find it noticable to see that the quali's are going better for Max. It looks like he improved there.

His starts have always been very good. This year they even get better it seems. Max knows how important that start is since he does not have the car yet to overtake the leading cars later in the race. The move on Vettel last race in Silverstone was proof of that.

Ricciardo is very experienced in racing and knows how to get his car to the finish. They can learn from eachother and they do.
Given the fact that Max is 19 and still improving it can go very fast and will outperform the other drivers on more occasions.

Qualifying is a wash - impossible to say how it would have gone. Ricciardo didn't even finish Q1, let alone get to the end. I joked that it means Ricciardo beat him, but it really doesn't mean anything.

For the race I found Ricciardo to be the more impressive, but he was in a position to be more impressive. If Max was pushing flat out the whole way, then Ricciardo was also faster than him. If he was coasting after all the big four got in front, then it's also hard to say. Since I'm not convinced that Max ever coasts, I'd be inclined to call the race at least even, and possibly slightly in Ricciardo's favor.

And no, I don't believe the off-track moment cost him a chance to actually attack Max. It was a lot of positions at the time, because the field was so closely bunched, but it probably wasn't more than 5 or so seconds.

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I agree that I don't see anyone saying Dan isn't good. Max fans typically view Max as the best driver on the grid, so just because they see Dan as worse doesn't mean he isn't still a top driver. Sort of like how I think Alonso is superior to Vettel, but Vettel is still solidly in the top category.

The disagreement comes in from the people who do not, in fact, think Max is necessarily better than Dan. I'm one of them - I think at present Max is conclusively better at two things: wet weather and first laps. I don't consider him better at defending, since I think his preferred defending moves should all be illegal, and they're both excellent overtakers. In terms of tyre management, whichever of them is having the better weekend seems to be better there. Ricciardo does have the clear edge in terms of not complaining over the radio, though.

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This makes a lot of sense.. Thanks for replying. On other forums, the partisan views seem to overrule discussion about the merits of each driver.

Back on topic, though, Max does seem to have been giving Dan a hard time. That being said, there is a rawness to Max's performances that mean he is either out of this world or bust. Dan shows a more balanced response to every situation. For me, Dan would be the best candidate to put together a wdc campaign I'd given the car. In a few Years, if Max continues on his current learning curve, his raw talent will be coupled with a patient head, he will be seriously hard to beat!!

As you said, he is still young and learning.

Being 19 in Formula one and already having driven 50 Grand Prix races is something.

Ricciardo has more F1 races under his belt. There is no denying that Ricciardo is a great driver and one who very well can be a World Champion in the right car and depending on the teammate. Ricciardo is older so will be hungry for a title of course.

Ricciardo being a better defender? I disagree. I think they both do a great job. The defending of Max being unfair? This has been talked about and I for one feel it's racing.

People tune in for excitement like this. Give it some more years and you will see more battles like that when the new generation comes.

I like Ricciardo. His performances are superb and I feel it a bit unfair to compare him to Max. Max is so young and already on this high level and still improving. Ricciardo is bound to give in at some point and not because he's a slouch but because the learning curve of Max is extremely high.

Is it so high anymore? It certainly was, but every curve has to taper off. Aside from his starts - which he's unquestionably improved dramatically - is he really doing any better compared to Ricciardo than he was this time last year?

BTW, I didn't say Ricciardo was a better defender, just that I don't think Max is.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 15 podiums): 3rd in 2016
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Hard to say if his car doesn't allow him to finish the races and prove whether or not he can stay ahead of Ricciardo. Shame he's had so much unreliability because it clouds our capability to judge.

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Indeed. Out of the three samples we have, we have one race where Max was compellingly faster in the wet portion (but not so much when it dried out), Monaco, and now a race where he started almost at the opposite end of the grid and finished ahead, as expected. It's very difficult to get a good read on their relative form from that. Hopefully we'll have better samples in the second half.

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Yet another race where you look on the board and see Daniel with a podium finish and Max empty-handed but the reality is that Max was stronger all weekend until the car failed him. Daniel has actually been surprisingly lucky. Inheriting positions whenever the Merc or Ferrari drivers hit trouble and staying out of the mechanical problems that have ruined his teammate's season. This is as lopsided as I've ever seen a teammate matchup in terms of reliability.

Yes, and no.

At the moment Max looks faster over one lap, but consider this. At Spa, it could well be that RIC set ran a little less wing to give him a straight line advantage for passing during the race at the expense of the ultimate 1 lap time in qualifying. They were certainly fiddling with wing settings during P1 and P2. What was the quote? Something like 'Purple in sectors 1 and 3, like an F3 car in sector 2'.

Also, while I agree that Max is looking like becoming one of the greats, it's all too easy to underplay RIC's pass on BOT and then hold off both RAI and BOT to claim that podium position.

Ultimately, I don't think it's reasonable to judge the drivers against each other in any particular race unless both drivers go the full distance.

Unfortunately there's been too few races this year where both drivers finished to be able to make a quantitative assessment.

Sure, my gut feel is that Max is faster and some of his starts this year have been epic (as was Brasil last year), but there's just not enough races where both have finished to be able to say that either one is the more complete driver...... yet......

Hopefully, we get to see a string of races where both finish before one of them goes to another team....

Ricciardo makes his own luck. His win in Baku and his podium at Spa came about because of his ability to make decisive passes when he needed to do so.

If it seems like Ricciardo is always there to pick up the scraps then it's because he's putting himself in the position to do so.

Not trying to take that away from him at all. I rate Daniel as easily top 5 on the current grid and I think he is a special talent. This season has been a lot like his 2014 season in that he has often been in the right place at the right time and he has capitalized on those opportunities.

Mostly I just feel bad for Max. He's having a nightmare season and it's really not his fault at all. I would love to see a real matchup between them but it's just not in the cards this year. 6 mechanical failures!!! I can't remember the last time someone in a top team had that many in one season and we still have a bunch of races left!

Schumacher, Mercedes 2012. Had more mechanical issues than Verstappen has by this point in the season. 5 retirements due to mechanical failure (Max has had 4), plus a gearbox penalty dumping him almost to the back of the grid in Hungary. He barely had a race without an issue of some kind

riccardo for me is a strange one. he is clearly a very good driver but there is always that nagging doubt that somehow hes made himself look better then he really is. he does seem to benefit from others misfortunte more then anyone, this season anyway. i see him as more prost then senna.

his reputation is mostly based on 2014 which you cant take away from him. but my feeling is that if he was vettels team mate this year, vettel would be ahead. not always but in general. vettel has got a hold on these tyres that he didnt have in 2014. i think the fact that pace wise max has been overall the more impressive this year, plus if its wet max has a decent advantage tells me that ric is a touch below the level of hamilton, vettel, alonso, max but ahead of the next pack.

When you're often the best of the rest (if Mercedes were retrospectively disqualified from 2014 to 16 Ricciardo would have 2 titles and about 20 race wins to his name) , then it's only natural you'll be the main beneficiary when things go wrong for the cars in front.

2 of his wins in 2014 were down to his ability to make passes stick at crucial times. Canada, he doesn't win without his 2 wheels on the grass pass on Perez at turn 1. Hungary he has to chase down and pass Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, probably the two best defensive drivers on the grid, in 5 laps, on a circuit that is notoriously difficult to overtake on.

Malaysia 2016, he has to hold off a charging Verstappen on fresher tyres to maintain track position so he's the one in the position to inherit the win when Hamilton's engine blew. His qualifying the previous day also meant he had a spare set of hard tyres to consolidate his advantage.

Baku he outdrags and passes 2 cars into turn 1 to give him 3rd place on a restart which turns into 1st when Vettel and Hamilton have their issues.

As if that's a bad thing


Dan was the pick of the bunch in 2016 as well. He had the lion's share of Red Bull bad luck in 2015, leading to Kvyat pipping him in the points

He's a top, top driver. It's just that the peak of Verstappen's talents are yet to come. Dan needs to compete for titles now rather than later. And that's all down to Red Bull-Renault

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While true, the most frustrating is that before retiring, Max is usually in that same position that would give him the opportunity to pick up the scraps. His overtaking has also been decisive when he gets in the position it's needed. The problem is that he doesn't get to show it because of car failures, Ricciardo inherits his position, and can show what Verstappen couldn't.

Full kudos to Ricciardo because he uses it to full effect, but he almost always inherits from Verstappen.

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...or his reliable car is?

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...Or it's both.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
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I certainly believe Verstappen is the more inherently talented out of the two, but Dan's skills are honed which makes up for it. Even with equal reliability this teammate battle would go down to the wire, but time is on Max's side.

Am I imagining things or has someone else noticed a pattern where Max is usually the faster driver over the practice sessions right up until the last lap in Q3, when it might out of the blue swing in Dan's direction? I've had this feeling for a time now that Max is the one bringing out the max speed (pun intended) and Dan gets up there by studying his data.

Maybe this should've gone in the unpopular opinions thread...

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I guess it might surprise you that It's Verstappen winning the qualifying battle.

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No I know that, but even the ones he's lost he's been faster right up til the last laps it seems to me. And the ones he's won have become closer in the end.

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Yes I've seen that it's happened a few times but is Ricciardo not known for leaving his best lap right to the end in season's past as well?

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Lets not forget Verstapppen is still only 19 and getting better every season. Its conceivable he could keep getting better for another 5 years. He's got it in him to be the greatest ever IMO.

Yes indeed.

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No he might be on to something. Last season was where this happened especially frequently. Max would be out in front the whole time until Q3 then Daniel would beat him. I think at that time Max was playing checkers while Daniel was playing chess if you know what I mean. Now Max seems to save something for Q3 himself and he has found out how to consistently beat Daniel. It's just bad luck in the races that's killing him.

Next year I think Max will beat Dan (barring another year with luck like this).

I have seen drivers in the past with the same technical reliability luck as Verstappen. They got the boot at the end of the season.

I am not saying he should get the boot, but you have to ask wether Ricciardo still has anything left to prove. I mean he took every sniff of opportunity he got.

I think we can start comparing the two of them when Max finishes a race. Yes, he has terrible reliability, but that should not take anything away from Daniel.

Well, yes he has? What about him getting outqualified more often than not? What about him proving that he can be ahead of Verstappen without the latter having bad luck?

I mean, I'm pretty sure at this point Verstappen's stock is at least rivaling Ricciardo's. If Ricciardo wants to have the best options outside of RBR (supposing Renault don't come good), then he can't have that.

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How about this. Change your paradigm and swap the results, times of Dan and Max.

You'd all be saying Dan is out the door being outscored by Max.

Maybe Max's fast practice times smash his engine and hence it dies in the race while Dan nurses his until q3 and gets a decent time but a reliable engine for the race. How many failures before this theory has merit?

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It wouldn't ever have merit, because more than one engineer has gone on record to say that's not even possible. You simply can't overrev these engines as the computer won't let you, while any driver accessing higher modes that they shouldn't - even if they could -would be found out pretty quickly by even the most cursory inspection of the telemetry. In the days of manual gearboxes etc you could wreck a car's engine. Now each car has more computing power than the Space Shuttle and it's virtually impossible

Nope. Just like I never said Kvyat was better than Ricciardo in 2015.



As far as I now understand, Max's engine didn't actually die at Spa. Software cut it out on the basis of a faulty detection of a supposed problem - it's a software safety Renault built in after earlier blowups.

The engine apparently ran fine after the race.

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No matter how you put it, at this point, to question Daniel, it's just insane.

Every driver is questioned to a certain degree though. I don't think anyone is saying Ricciardo is not an outstanding driver, but it's not like he doesn't have a serious challenge in Verstappen.

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I think this is where you are getting it a bit wrong here. Nobody questions the fact that Verstappen isn't a real challenge. I think everyone around here, including myself, ''feel'', because it isn't a certainty, that Verstappen is the one with more potential.

But for this season, Daniel has made his move, and reliability or not, Max has to do it now. No matter how reliability goes, questions logically remain to the one that hasn't answered them. Is he a great talent ? Yes. Question answered. Has he had some great drives ? Yes. Question answered. Is he able to constantly put it up there and to pull things out of the bag, when the bag is empty ? Presumably yes, but he has not done it yet.

Has Ricciardo done it ? Yes, he is doing it as we speak.

I think this is the correct dynamic for every driver.

Well yes he has done it... He has done it at various times last year, he has done it this year in China, Silverstone was of the same make. If he finishes, then apart from Monaco he's been in the highest possible finishing position and he has picked up the scraps where the others left them.

Max can't do more than he has been doing all season long, in almost every weekend: being as high up as his material allows for it, being in front of his team mate, until it doesn't allow for it anymore. He cannot do more than that.

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but if his car keeps breaking down for the next 15 years, you will not name him a great driver, will you

it's part of the game unfortunately.

Senna has a worse retirement rate than Verstappen....

Which was normal back then. Now the cars have to last...

For the first sentence I think you need to give some examples, for the rest of what you said I think Ricciardo has been incredible lucky, I think Verstappen's reliability issues have perhaps saved him from a beating.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)