Daniel Ricciardo heads into the British Grand Prix this weekend admitting his love for the high-speed circuits, of which Silverstone is most certainly one.
Despite the disappointments of recent races the Australian driver is expecting a great atmosphere at the Silverstone track.
“I can’t hide it, Silverstone’s awesome!” revealed Ricciardo. “I love high-speed circuits with high-speed corners – and so the run from Copse through Maggotts, Becketts, Chapel and then around Stowe… maybe the five coolest corners on the calendar and to have them coming at you one after the other.
“The thing about Silverstone is that it’s packed from Thursday onwards. If we have one of those nice, hot blue-sky sunny weekends then the atmosphere’s amazing.
“If it’s grey, wet and windy then the atmosphere’s still amazing. I’m not sure how that’s possible – but Silverstone manages it. As for driving in those conditions, it’s still exciting – but in a very different way!”
The Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver comes into the weekend on the back of two relatively disappointing weekends in Canada and Austria, having scored just one point in those two outings, but Ricciardo remembers making his Formula 1 debut at Silverstone back in 2011 for the HRT team, and revealed that the circuit gets better when the car he drives gets quicker.
“At the time [of my debut] it was probably the quickest I’d ever been around the circuit because the HRT was just about faster than the old-spec Formula Renault 3.5 car,” said Ricciardo.
“It’s definitely a circuit where, the faster the car, the better the experience – though that’s usually the case with high-speed tracks. I mean, Silverstone’s great in a Formula Renault 2.0, but in an F1 car? Epic!”