Daniel Ricciardo: 'I'm dangerous as soon as we start racing'

Daniel Ricciardo was all set for mid-March in Australia, but the race was cancelled at the very last minute. To pass the time, the Australian has mainly been training the last few weeks and therefore he is fitter than ever. He therefore expects to be a dangerous man as soon as the season starts.

Ready to go

"I’m very confident. I’m very ready to go," says the Renault rider at Fox Sports Australia, "I was obviously going to be ready in March but this lay-off — any fire I’ve got is fuelled more which I think is quite dangerous." In other words: He's very fit and very eager, so as soon as we start racing Ricciardo and his drive is a driver to be reckoned with.

The expectation is that the season will start on July 5th, so that will take some time. He will have to bridge that time with more training, among other things. At the same time he does state that the longer period of free time also comes with an advantage.

"You can take the training side of it (as a positive) and not being on a plane every three days and kind of beating up your body without any training impact. So having that consistency has been good," But the long absence of the sport has also been an 'eye-opener' in the classic sense, says Ricciardo: "And I think when you don’t have something it reiterates how much you miss it when it’s gone."

"I miss the racing. I’ve been able to set some extra goals in my head, write some things down and, yeah, I want it", said the driver who obviously can't wait to start again.