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Daniel Ricciardo will be looking to impress his home crowd this weekend in Melbourne as Formula 1 gets back underway with the dawn of a new era. The cars are wider and faster making it one of the most unpredictable in a few years.
Red Bull will be looking to rise to the challenge of Mercedes who have dominated the championship over the past three seasons. ESPN sat down with Ricciardo and talked about his love affair with Formula 1, and where it all began.
"The first race I ever went to Adelaide 1993, I was obviously still young but the noise is the first thing you remember. I remember going to Melbourne a few years later and from our hotel room you could hear the cars at Friday practice and I was like 'Dad, let's frickin' go to the track already, can you hear the noise?!' Noise was the first association with it and that [sound of] neooowwwwwnnnnn, moving the neck really fast."
During Ricciardo's formative years, Formula One went through a spell in which Australia was not represented by a driver on the grid. All that changed in 2002, however, when a certain rookie named Mark Webber miraculously dragged a Minardi to fifth place at Albert Park on his debut. A 13 year-old "Honey Badger" was in the crowd that day and was already set on the path to the pinnacle of motorsport, cutting his teeth in Karting.
"The grandstands were crazy," he recalls, smiling. "I think the last few laps he had a crazy battle on his hands with Salo, and then he defended and Salo made a mistake and the crowd cheered again. I felt like everyone was super proud to be Australian and proud that we had an Aussie back in Formula One.
"But just as much as that people were excited to see a good underdog story -- a Minardi coming fifth, they were just as excited for that as they were for the Australian, kind of thing. I obviously didn't know Mark then and was very, very early in my racing career but it was cool to see him do his thing."
Ricciardo will surely be hoping that his fans in Australia will be cheering his name at the end of the weekend, and will be looking to take the first Australian GP podium from an Australian driver.
By Alex Griffin
Further Editing by Fergal Walsh
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