Kimi Raikkonen passed Daniel Ricciardo for 4th place in the standings in the final Formula One race of the 2017 season. That didn’t stop Ricciardo from criticizing his season.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo held 4th place in the Formula One drivers standings for much of the 2017 season. But in the final race of the year, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he was forced to retire after a tire puncture, and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen took advantage of that to take 4th from him in the final standings.
Ricciardo, particularly his car’s reliability, struggled down the stretch. In the beginning and middle of the season, it was his teammate Max Verstappen with the reliability issues, as he was forced to retire in five of the first nine and seven of the first 14 races of the season before finishing on a six-race streak of top 5 finishes, including his second and third career wins.
Through the first 16 races of the season, Ricciardo had been forced to retire just three times, and he finished in the top 5 in each of the 13 races he was actually able to finish, winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in the process for his fourth career victory.
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But in the final four races of the season, Ricciardo was forced to retire three times and finished in a season-low 6th place in the race he actually managed to finish. Yet even with all of those struggles, Kimi Raikkonen, whose Ferrari car was definitely more consistent and faster than Ricciardo’s Red Bull machine throughout the season, was only able to pass Ricciardo in the standings in the final race of the season.
Raikkonen finished ahead of Ricciardo by a point total of 205 to 200, and he was able to take away the 4th spot from him because of it. That led Ricciardo to criticize Raikkonen’s season as a whole.
"“If I’m brutally honest, with that car he should have been a long way in front in the championship. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s a big deal.”"
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Do you think Daniel Ricciardo’s assessment of Kimi Raikkonen’s 2017 Formula One season is accurate, or do you think he went a bit too far? Whatever the case me be, it doesn’t change the fact that Raikkonen did finish one spot higher than Ricciardo in the final drivers standings.