Ricciardo’s win was just what Formula 1 needed

By Jun 9, 2014, 10:30 AM EDT
11 Comments

Good news stories in Formula 1 are usually quite hard to come by. In the past two weeks though, there have been plenty.

Jules Bianchi’s charge to ninth place at the Monaco Grand Prix for Marussia was a Cinderella story, given that neither the driver or team had scored any points in the previous four years of racing. This time around, it’s another first: Daniel Ricciardo’s first grand prix victory. And it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

Mercedes’ dominance in Formula 1 so far this season has been both staggering and monotonous. You have to admire the way in which Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton have ruled proceedings; the W05 is a mechanical masterpiece. In the same breath though, it was becoming predictable. It was a question of being Team Lewis or Team Nico – the rest of the field wasn’t realistically in the hunt for a race win.

But then Formula 1 reminded us of everything that is great about the sport. The old saying goes: “To finish first, first you have to finish”, and this resonated with Mercedes in Canada. Just when everything appeared to be going to plan, disaster struck in the form of a double ERS failure. The times for both cars dropped off dramatically due to the issue, and it proved to be serious enough to force Hamilton into retirement. Rosberg continued to plug away, and looked set to do the unthinkable with a few laps to go.

There’s the kicker: even though Rosberg was running between one and two seconds per lap slower than the other front-runners, he still finished second, such was his initial lead. It was a phenomenal result.

The biggest smile of course belonged to Daniel Ricciardo, though. Of all the people to break Mercedes’ dominant streak, perhaps it was best that it was the Australian driver. A first time grand prix winner, and one of the most popular racers on the grid among the fans and the F1 community as a whole. Few will begrudge him this victory.

Sebastian Vettel will know that he could – and maybe should – have won this race, though. He lost a huge amount of time stuck behind Nico Hulkenberg after making his first pit stop, and by pitting before Ricciardo, he lost a position in the pits to his teammate. In fact, he was just 0.4 seconds slower through the pits than his teammate. The race could have been lost on 0.4 seconds. If Seb was ahead of Dan, he probably would have been the one to pass Perez, and most probably would have been the one to then overtake Rosberg. The finger would have returned to the top step of the podium. Cue cries of “we saw that last season!”.

With Dan, though, the Canadian GP breathed fresh air into the championship and season. The perfect season is no longer on. Mercedes may still have the quickest car, only one man had the biggest smile after the race.

IndyCar disappointed by delay of video game but aiming to launch at start of 2024

By Mar 27, 2023, 3:00 PM EDT
IndyCar video game 2024
IndyCar
0 Comments

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”