Ricciardo speechless in Monaco
Daniel Ricciardo suffered from a loss of voice in Monaco, forcing him to communicate with his engineer by pressing buttons on his steering wheel during the Grand Prix.
After Pastor Maldonado’s victory in Spain, Daniel Ricciardo hoped to be the surprise of the Monaco Grand Prix. But the Australian driver’s weekend in Monaco did not go as he had hoped: « I arrived in Monaco with high hopes of doing something special, but ultimately Monaco was a very frustrating race. We bet on rain and when it didn’t come, it clearly cost us. »
Ricciardo also revealed on the blog he maintains on the Toro Rosso team site that he suffered from a voice loss in Monaco, which made it difficult to communicate with his team during the race: « The other thing I will remember (from Monaco) is that I spent the weekend almost without speaking. I lost my voice before this weekend, and it was not very convenient. I think the airplane’s air conditioning didn’t suit me. It left me a bit frustrated and made me feel a bit useless because it’s clearly not the circuit where you want to have a communication problem. »
But since that wasn’t going to stop him from racing, to address this problem, Ricciardo agreed on a code with his engineer using the buttons on his steering wheel: « In the end, we decided on several signals that I would use to communicate with my engineer during the race. Overall, he was the one talking, and I responded using certain buttons on the steering wheel, and he could see it through the telemetry. It worked well but it wasn’t ideal. »
Fortunately for him, things should return to normal this weekend in Montreal: « Ultimately it doesn’t matter because it’s in the past. My voice is coming back slowly and it should be fine for Canada. »
The Toro Rosso driver will need his voice in Montreal as he will almost be discovering the Gilles-Villeneuve track. He has only raced once in a Formula 1 car on this circuit, during last year’s Free Practice 1. He was able to complete 35 laps at the wheel of the Toro Rosso.
Even though Canada will be a discovery for him, he is quite confident as he has prepared for this new challenge: « I only had limited time on track in Montreal but it seems to be a superb circuit. Of course, it represents a very different challenge from Monaco. We did some preparations during the Mugello tests, which should help us a bit but I think we will see on Friday. »
Due to the lack of rain in Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo is ready to take advantage of a potential race in the rain in Canada, as it could allow him to stand out: « As always, I am confident that we should be well positioned – and hopefully that will really kickstart our season. It might also rain this weekend, as we saw last year, so anything can happen. »
