Daniel Ricciardo did a lot of swearing in Monaco this weekend. But that's OK – suffering through his recent cursed luck he's earned the right.
In fact one imagines the expletives deleted started in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous decision to pit him at the Spanish Grand Prix – a bad strategic move that consigned the Australian to watching his newly minted teammate Max Verstappen finally break Red Bull's winning drought.
Verstappen didn't have such an easy ride in Monaco, hitting the wall in qualifying and then again crashing out of the race as pushed for a result. Ricciardo, on the other hand, looked brilliant all weekend – a man possessed with proving he was the fastest on the grid and the driver most likely to deliver Red Bull a title.
Ricciardo's swearing at Monaco started during a blocked practice run with a frank character assessment of Ferrari's ever-grumpy Kimi Raikkonen – no slouch with a four-letter word himself. The Australian flipped Kimi off with a bird and a reminder that Monaco is by the sea.
A determined Ricciardo didn't hold back after qualifying, either, having nailed his first-ever pole position.
"My f---ing time," he said over the team radio between whoops and hollering.
Still, that was all fun and games. The agitated swearing probably started up again when he awoke on race day in a small Monaco apartment and saw it was pissing down, thus negating the strategic tyre advantage Red Bull had won by finishing qualifying session two on the supersoft Pirellis.
For a while though it all went to plan ... well, until that 13.6-second pitstop when Ricciardo was told to pit and his new tyres were not ready. The crew had rubber in hand – just the wrong compound.
The keystone cops scramble left Ricciardo sitting fuming in the box while Lewis Hamilton raced into the lead by mere metres and away with the most coveted trophy on the F1 calendar.
"Save it. Nothing you can say will make that any better. Save it," a beaten down Ricciardo said over team radio immediately after crossing the line 7.252 seconds behind the Mercedes..
Later after appearing almost sick on the podium, he complained of being "screwed".
As befits his usually calm demeanor he did try to contain his anger; at least he didn't swear in front of the royal family.
Still, there's an upside to all this bleeping of words on team radio – Australia's man has his dander up. And Ricciardo's renewed focus coincides with a Red Bull Renault upgrade that could see him battling for more wins as the season progresses.
After four years in Formula One and much of that time spent chasing the tail of two dominant Mercedes, Ricciardo is now seething and up for the fight – in his own team and on the track against the world champions.
Sure, we all like his natural smile and genial qualities, but that bloke we saw on the Monaco podium filthy with second place.
Well, that's a f---ing world champion right there.
