• Hungarian Grand Prix: Sunday, 4pm
It is hard to think of many recent occasions when Daniel Ricciardo has been under genuine pressure in Formula One.
You probably have to go back to the summer of 2013 when it was announced Mark Webber was retiring and his Red Bull Racing replacement would be either Ricciardo or his Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne.
Ricciardo, 27, raised his game and did what he had to, both at race weekends and in testing, and it was he that got the nod and until last month his career had been on an upwards trajectory.
No, he has not challenged for world titles, but he has not had the machinery to do so. He has won races and challenged every time he has had a chance to do so, which is all that could be realistically expected.
Yet the Australian goes into Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix in urgent need of a big result after being comfortably out-performed by his teenage teammate Max Verstappen at the past two races.
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Back in 2014, Ricciardo, had surprised F1 by regularly beating four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel in the same equipment, winning three races that season to the German’s none.
Vettel departed to Ferrari at the end of the season, and Ricciardo had the better of Vettel’s replacement, Daniil Kvyat.
The fact that Kvyat was getting nowhere near Ricciardo on speed in the first four races of 2016 led to Red Bull swapping out Kvyat for Verstappen.
Verstappen, 18, won his first race with the team in Spain, but he would be the first to acknowledge he had not been as quick as Ricciardo, gaining track position only through a strategy call by Red Bull that inadvertently favoured him.
Ricciardo was superb in Monaco where he took his first pole and would have won if not for a botched pit stop. Verstappen was nowhere that weekend as he crashed in both qualifying and the race, but credit to the Dutchman, he has bounced back well.
He beat Ricciardo in the race in Canada, and then after a forgettable race in Azerbaijan last month for both men, it has been he that has had the edge.
He finished second in Austria, with Ricciardo a distant fifth, and then fought with the Mercedes cars in Britain two weeks ago to be runner-up again, with Ricciardo having a lonely race behind to fourth.
Anyone can have a bad race. Two in a row, could be a coincidence. But if Verstappen bests Ricciardo again at the Hungaroring on Sunday then talk the Dutchman being the quicker man is becoming a reality.
Adding fuel to the fire of the situation is the fact the twisty nature of the Budapest track should give Red Bull their first real chance to fight for victory since Monaco.
This is a new position for Ricciardo to be in. He was the youngster in 2014 who was the hunter humbling the established star in Vettel.
But now the boot is on the other foot.
Reputations are forged and lost quickly in F1 in a world where only one man in each team can come out on top each weekend.
Ricciardo has been used to being the man with the upperhand, but now the F1 world is about to find out just how he responds to being beaten by the man sharing his garage and it add a fascinating sub-plot to Sunday’s action.
gcaygill@thenational.ae
