Speaking on Sky Sports F1 during practice coverage for the Canadian Grand Prix, Jacques Villeneuve absolutely ripped into Daniel Ricciardo and is bemused as to why the Australian still has a spot on the grid at present.
The 34-year-old from Perth has been struggling since 2021. Although he won the Italian Grand Prix for McLaren at Monza that year, he was thoroughly outperformed by Lando Norris during their two seasons together as teammates.
Ricciardo has also struggled in the main since his return to the sport in the middle of 2023. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda scored 9 more points than him in their 7 races together last season.
In 2024, it’s 19-5 overall in favour of the Japanese driver as Tsunoda has excelled so far. The Australian’s only points came in the Miami Sprint when he drove an excellent race to finish P4.
The 1997 F1 World Champion did not hold back on his opinion on Ricciardo’s current level of performance. RB F1 boss Laurent Mekies had said on Sky during first practice that the team needs to give the Perth driver a car he feels more comfortable in.
Villeneuve was not having it.
“Why is he still in F1?
“We’re hearing the same thing now for the last 4-5 years, ‘we have to make the car better for him’, ‘poor him’. Sorry, it’s been 5 years of that. No. You’re in F1.
“Maybe you make that effort for a Lewis Hamilton, who’s won multiple championships, you don’t make that effort for a driver that can’t cut it.”
“If you can’t cut it, go home. There’s someone else to take your place. That’s how it’s always been in racing, it’s the pinnacle of the sport.
“There’s no reason to keep going and to keep finding excuses.”
Villeneuve was not finished there. He went after Ricciardo’s general record in F1, believing he did nothing special against Vettel and Verstappen for different reasons.
In his first season at Red Bull Racing in 2014, Ricciardo won his first three races in the sport (Canada, Hungary and Belgium) and beat teammate and four-time defending World Champion Sebastian Vettel by 71 points.
He also got the better of other stablemates as well during his time at Red Bull Racing and Renault, defeating Max Verstappen (2016, 2017), Nico Hülkenberg (2019), and Esteban Ocon (2020).
At the end of 2020 before heading to McLaren, he was comfortably rated as one of the top drivers in the sport. That was not enough to impress Villeneuve, though.
“You all talk about that first season or first two seasons.
“He was beating a [Sebastian] Vettel that was burnt out, that was trying to invent things with the car to go win and just making a mess of his weekends.
“Then he was beating, for half a season, [Max] Verstappen when Verstappen was 18 years old – just starting.
“Then that was it — he stopped beating anyone after that.”
As for why Ricciardo is still in F1, Villeneuve think it’s because of his image, such as smiling and having a positive attitude. The Australian continues to be one of the most popular drivers in the sport.
“I think his image has kept him in F1 more than his actual results.”
The 1995 Indy 500 champion then turned his attention to Kevin Magnussen.
Speaking on Thursday in his written media session, Magnussen doubled down on his criticism of Perez after the big crash on the opening lap in Monaco.Villeneuve was far from impressed once again.
“That’s why he [Magnussen] never learns.”
The Canadian believes the Dane was totally in the wrong for the crash nearly two weeks ago.
“A hundred percent, a thousand percent — there’s no doubt [it’s Magnussen’s fault].
“Unless as a driver you spend your time thinking ‘I was wrong, I could have done better’, you will never learn and you’ll repeat over and over and over the same mistake.”
Villeneuve believes having humility is important as you can learn from mistakes and improve yourself as a driver.
Magnussen has picked up 10 penalty points so far this year, and he was lucky to avoid picking up another 2 in the eyes of many for the Monaco incident. A race ban still looms large, however.
“You need it for yourself. You need to always blame yourself, whatever happened. That’s the only way you can learn.
“And sometimes you’re not at fault, but maybe you could have done something to avoid being caught in the incident — and that is something you also need to learn.”
