Bottas v Ricciardo - How are they comparing?

[chunterer]

Ok, last year's Eurocup FR 2.0 protagonists Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo, both widely considered to be potential superstars in the making, stepped up to F3 this year, one in Europe and one in Britain.

So we may have been robbed of a continued direct rivalry and comparison as their careers continue to rise but how do people rate their performances this season relatively?

For me they have performed at a fairly similar level; both front runners in their respective series, and both conceivably going to be challenging for the title in each one.

What do we all think?

[gomick]

Think Ricciardo needs to pull out another win to stop the Hitech juggernaut from rolling on...

Bottas has got 12 rounds to pull his finger out - good battle between him & Merhi, another Eurocup gun from last year...

Euro F3 Points...

Jules Bianchi - 49
Christian Vietoris - 32
Jean K Vernay - 29
Sam Bird - 23
Roberto Merhi - 20
Valtteri Bottas - 18

[strider]

Originally Posted by gomick

Think Ricciardo needs to pull out another win to stop the Hitech juggernaut from rolling on...

He's just done that. Grubmuller DNF, van der Zande 4th. Better?

[chunterer]

So Spa was a sort of head-to-head for the two of them on a more equal footing than the Masters then.

Ricciardo comes out on top?

The ART guys aquitted themselves well though it must be said, even Gutierrez who is arguably more inexperienced than Bottas, Bianchi et al.

Overall though I would day there isn't much between Daniel and Valtteri in ability, it'll be the career breaks and momentum from now on more than anything I guess?

[Valker]

Originally Posted by chunterer

So Spa was a sort of head-to-head for the two of them on a more equal footing than the Masters then.

Why was Spa more equal to them than Marlboro Masters? If you are talking about FOTA teams' tyre excuse, Avon was just as new to Vale as Kumho was to Daniel.

Besides, Carlin has lots of data from Kumho tyres. ART, how ever, don't use Avon regularly.

[strider]

I'm not going to repeat myself, so here's an edited post from the Spa thread.

Originally Posted by strider

To put it in perspective ART is probably the best F3 team out there and has the pick of the drivers, so you would expect them to go well.

The other point is that the transition from Kumho to Cooper tyres does seem to be much easier than the other way around. Van der Zande won first time out at Silverstone.

The other point is that ART have raced on Avons at Spa before, when they were ASM.

We're not talking excuses here, just facts.

[Blitzer]

Originally Posted by strider

The other point is that ART have raced on Avons at Spa before, when they were ASM.

We're not talking excuses here, just facts.

Facts:
1: ASM has never used Avon before. The only Euroseries teams that have made one-offs at BF3 are Signature, Prema and HBR.
2: ASM/ART has raced twice in Spa: 2005 in ES with Kumhos and 2001 in French F3 with Michelin.
3: Carlin has entered Masters every year and is racing fulltime in Euroseries since last season. Plenty of experience with Kumho tyres and Zandvoort track.

[strider]

ASM raced at Spa when they were a French Championship team with Tiago Monteiro, Oriel Servia and maybe one other as drivers.

[gomick]

So Bottas is doing better than Ricciardo this year - nuff said...

[sauber11]

+1 for Bottas , i think he is slightly better driver.

[alias99]

if riccardo was in euroseries his performences would be different as he has 2 years of eurocup experience on the european tracks, you have to remember riccardo never raced in britain until this year! last year he lost the title to bottas by 1 point because of tricky conditions and a bad call by his team and bottas got away with it. They are very evenly matched and it would be good to see them in the same championship again next year! i remember silverstone last year they fought all they way till the end of the race and riccardo came out on top on the last lap after bottas led the whole way. thats just my opinion

[Sev]

Originally Posted by alias99

if riccardo was in euroseries his performences would be different as he has 2 years of eurocup experience on the european tracks, you have to remember riccardo never raced in britain until this year! last year he lost the title to bottas by 1 point because of tricky conditions and a bad call by his team and bottas got away with it. They are very evenly matched and it would be good to see them in the same championship again next year! i remember silverstone last year they fought all they way till the end of the race and riccardo came out on top on the last lap after bottas led the whole way. thats just my opinion

I'd agree they're evenly matched, although if Ricciardo was in F3ES with Carlin he wouldn't be able to compete fairly with Bottas because of the ART advantage.

I also doubt that we'll see them together next year; I'd expect Bottas to remain in F3ES and go for the championship, whilst Ricciardo will probably go to WSR. The following year in GP2 is when they'd next compete.

If I had my personal view, I think Bottas seemed the better last year, but Ricciardo has done better this year. The last few races will be interesting though; Hulkenburg and Bianchi both came on strongly at the end of their rookie seasons, I wonder if Bottas will do the same.

[sauber11]

Didnt know where to post, so used this topic:

Nine Juniors have taken 15 wins and 38 podium finishes – and three drivers have been convincing.

Dr Helmut Marko, jointly responsible for the line-up of Red Bull’s talent squad, is only partially satisfied:
“Just three drivers have been able to convince so far – Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) in the British F3 Championship, Jean-Eric Vergne (FRA) in both Formula Renault 2.0 championships and our new F1 driver Jaime Alguersuari (ESP), who was recently able to win his first race of 2009 in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. All the other Juniors are clearly short of expectations and are therefore under pressure to perform for the remainder of the season.”

I think this is last year in RB-juniors for Mika Maki(same story Vernay last year), Daniel Juncadella(they already have spanish driver in f1 + arrival of Felipe Nasr as a Daniel replacement) and Michail Aleshin( too old, Wickens and Bortolotti are faster).

[chunterer]

So mid season 2010 and how are these 2 guys comparing now?

Having won the British F3 title last year, Ricciardo is still very much a Red Bull favoured driver and is possibly the only guy who can challenge Aleshin forthe WSR 3.5 title. He has been a bit inconsitent but the latent pace is clear to see.

Bottas on the other hand stayed in F3 with ART and has had a couple of runs in the Williams. Williams obviously know he's good but expect him to win the ESF3 title which he appears to be making heavy weather of?

How do people see things panning out for the 2 guys now and has anyone any particular observations to share?

[N.A-D.R]

Well I think Ricciardo is doing extremely well this year, remember hes a rookie in WSR and even missed some of the pre-season testing due to a broken hand. Hes easily the top rookie and i can only see him challenging Aleshin for the championship. You also have to remember Aleshin has been in WSR for 3 or so years now, so hes doing a great job.

Bottas in the other hand IMO has not done what i was expecting. I expected him to take the championship with a bit of ease, but hes struggling and now really showing any improvement from last year. But it's not the end of the championship there and he could quite possibly turn his championship around.

So overall I think Ricciardo is on top.

[gomick]

Interesting thta they both got race wins on the weekend - Ricciardo at Hungaroaring (WSR) & Bottas at Norisring (F3ES)...

[chunterer]

I think that is good timing for the latter, needs to out a run together for the rest of the season to keep his momentum.