While Mercedes and Red Bull are fighting hard for the world title this season, Ferrari and McLaren are fighting for consolation – P3. And so far it has been swinging like a pendulum, with Lando Norris carrying the entire team on his shoulders at the start of the season amid Daniel Ricciardo’s fights.
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For McLaren, however, things were on the verge of taking a wild turn, with Norris losing his shape and Ferrari picking up speed again with the crucial engine update at Monza. Then the savior came in Ricciardo, exactly when the team needed him most.
With the race win at the Italian Grand Prix, home of the rivals, he got McLaren back on track. In contrast to the first half of the season, Ricciardo looks much faster than his teammate, who not only lost his P3 to Valtteri Bottas, but also dropped to P5 after Sergio Perez’s podium in the USA.
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Daniel Ricciardo – The X-Factor in the McLaren-Ferrari fight
Given Ricciardo’s current performance, former F1 driver Mika Häkkinen felt that the honey badger is now the biggest difference in the ongoing rivalry between Ferrari and McLaren.
Formula 1 F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, USA – October 23, 2021 McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo during practice REUTERS / Mike Blake
“I think Daniel is in much better shape at this point in the season than he was at the beginning of the year when he was struggling a little. The win in Monza made a difference and in Austin it was clear that he had a lot more confidence in the car, ”he wrote to Unibet.
“The battle between him, Lando and the two Ferrari drivers will be incredibly close when we go into the last five grands prix,” he added.
Fight for P5 in the drivers’ championship
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At first, Norris looked like the best candidate to secure P3 in the drivers’ standings. Unfortunately, that’s not supposed to be the case, as both Bottas and Perez show solid performances in the second half of the season. Meanwhile, the incident in Hungary was certainly a blow to Norris’ high-flying campaign as it then lost ground to Ricciardo.
Formula 1 F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, USA – October 23, 2021 Ferraris Charles Leclerc and Ferraris Carlos Sainz Jr. in action during qualifying REUTERS / Brian Snyder
Norris currently holds P5 with 149 points. And Ferrari is getting closer and closer to the British, with the gap between Leclerc and Norris now dropping to 21 points. In addition, the 2021 US GP marked Ricciardo as the eighth driver of the season to break the three-digit mark for championship points.
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So with just 44 points left between the two McLaren teammates and five more races to go, the battle continues! Norris threatens to lose further positions to Leclerc and Sainz and possibly even Ricciardo. So who will ultimately come out on top in the midst of the close fight?
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The post Hakkinen predicts an exciting end to the McLaren-Ferrari F1 battle amid Daniel Ricciardo’s resurgence first appeared on monter-une-startup.
