RB staff principal Laurent Mekies believes Pink Bull’s openness about when it should evaluation its driver performances may result in an excessive amount of stress throughout a race weekend.
Daniel Ricciardo’s future was the topic of intense scrutiny throughout the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, with the Australian’s demeanor evolving from anticipating a call on 2025 to believing he had doubtless pushed his ultimate race in Components 1 by Sunday evening. A part of the rationale for the main focus was Pink Bull confirming it could evaluation the performances of its drivers in each groups after Singapore – one thing it has additionally executed earlier within the 12 months – however Mekies sees a possible draw back to that method.
“There may be nothing mistaken with reviewing your drivers’ efficiency each few races, and I feel we now have maybe been too public about it,” Mekies advised SiriusXM. “We have now executed it within the first a part of the season, we now have executed it fairly famously simply earlier than the summer season break, I suppose at some stage we now have mentioned we are going to see after Singapore as properly to debate!
“So it’s a part of the sport. Actually generally you possibly can see it’s most likely going a bit too far when it comes to stress, above all for Daniel in that case.
“I feel the primary thought is for Daniel, as a result of he has had numerous that this season. Some causes it’s been quiet, some races it’s been very troublesome, that is for certain one of many very troublesome races. In fact, these guys are excessive stage athletes and so they know find out how to take care of it however generally it’s a bit pointless.”
Talking earlier than Ricciardo completed 18th with the quickest lap in Singapore, Mekies says the main focus may place numerous consideration on a driver that may have an effect on outcomes when there margins are so small inside the midfield.
“If you happen to take a look at the worldwide image, for certain as a lot as we wish to assume it’s not a distraction, it’s all the time taking somewhat little bit of power out of you. And when every part is so tight, and Daniel was super-fast this weekend during, he didn’t get an excellent [qualifying] session with the mushy, and when every part issues a tenth right here and a tenth there, for certain we can not neglect concerning the significantly troublesome context he had this weekend.”
