Daniel Ricciardo, who was annoyed with his performance this season, made peace with himself around mid-season break.
He stopped comparing himself with his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, who was more fortunate this season.
Red Bull was hit with multiple reliability issues, mostly affecting Ricciardo on track, which frustrated him over the F1 season.
Ricciardo, who will be switching team to Renault in next season of 2019, was able to fetch only two Grand Prix’s to his name. He made to top in China and Monaco Grand Prix, but wasn’t able to perform later in the season. Unfortunately, he was only able to finish sixth at the end of the championship.
However, his team-mate Verstappen managed to recover and raced head-on with the title contenders, Hamilton and Vettel, at the end of the season. He came back strongest ever of his F1 career this season, while making to fourth place on the final standings. He was able to win Austria and Mexico along with 11 podiums overall.
Ricciardo, struck with unfortunate events, was frustrated with no momentum as compared to his team-mate. But he came stronger to himself and coped through the problem by not comparing himself with the team mate.
“I think I got to a point, probably around the mid-season break, where I just didn’t care about the stats anymore,” Ricciardo told Autosport.
“I knew I was probably going to get done in qualifying this year, who cares? I may end up with fewer points, who cares?
“I just want to do what I can and if it works, it works and if it doesn’t, life goes on.
“Of course, I did care, but it was just that I didn’t want to put it on a pedestal.
“I already had so many other things on my mind. I didn’t need to fill it with more expectations.
“If I did the best job I could: maybe I could beat him but if not, so be it and I’ll live to fight another day.”
The Australian driver, later in the season, failed to perform with no podiums and five retirements. His early victories of the season didn’t convince him that those successes were perfect.
“When you think about it, I won two out of six, but with the other four actually, there was always some drama,” he said. “In Melbourne, I had a penalty before the season even began, so I was already ready to put my fricking elbow through a wall.
“In Bahrain, my race was over after a lap. In China, I won in kind of a spectacular fashion.
“Then there’s Baku, and we all know what happened in Baku.
“In Barcelona, I spun behind the safety car and then in Monaco I won.
“As good as the first six races were, it kind of shaped the whole year really and that craziness has continued.”
