Aussie Ricciardo tipping much faster Red Bull in 2017 - MotorSportsTalk

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Daniel Ricciardo is confident his Red Bull is faster than the car he drove to third place in the Formula One drivers’ championship last season.

Whether it’s fast enough to catch the Mercedes entries, he says, only time will tell.

Ricciardo is back in Melbourne for Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix, where F1 rule changes requiring wider tires, greater aerodynamics, bigger fuel loads and increased downforce are expected to make the heavier cars significantly faster than previous years.

Nico Rosberg won the Australian GP last year, and held off Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton for the 2016 title. Rosberg’s retirement leaves Hamilton the favorite to win a fourth F1 championship.

Ricciardo is expected to again be among the leading contenders, and he’s back on his home track feeling content with progress over the off-season. He placed fourth in Melbourne last year, but improved during the season and won the Malaysian GP, got his first pole position and picked up seven other podium finishes.

The 27-year-old Australian said winter testing at Red Bull, alongside teammate Max Verstappen, had been the best he’d been involved with. He said he was less than a half second behind the Mercedes.

“Testing is never really a clear picture. I expect Ferrari and Mercedes to be quick and I hope we can be with them as well,” he said. “We’re coming here pretty confident.”

The newly developed F1 cars have tires which are 25 percent wider, have more grip and – crucially – are more durable, enabling drivers to push harder and limiting the cyclical pit stop strategy that made many races easy to call.

Ricciardo produced the fastest lap in the 2016 Australian GP and predicts his new Red Bull vehicle is 40 kph (25 mph) faster through corners.

“We’ve gone from 220 (137 mph) to 260 (162 mph), so that’s a big difference and that’s more fun for sure,” he said. “I think as a spectator now when you’re paying money to see a race and you see us corner at these speeds, you’re getting more for your money as well.”

Forecast rain may slow the cars down, though, with showers expected on Saturday for the qualifying and Sunday during the GP. The first practice sessions are set for Friday.

Australian race fans, who flock to the Albert Park street circuit in their tens of thousands, are hoping to see the Ricciardo’s now famous Shoey, where he celebrates success by drinking from his racing boot.

Ricciardo is hoping there’ll be plenty of Shoey shows in 2017, saying his aim is to be the world champion and he’ll be doing everything he can to make it happen this year.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

Read more about SuperMotocross