The expectations before the start of the 2017 season were that with the increased effect of car's aerodynamics, Red Bull will have an edge due to their cars' outstanding aero performance in recent years, and due to the fact that Adrian Newey, who is considered a genius in that field, designs the Bull's cars. Those speculations set the bar high for Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, who are certainly one of the best drivers on the grid.
However, with the start of the season things proved to be different. Red Bull was behind Ferrari and Mercedes not only because of the power units they use, but their car was far from the other title contenders as well in terms of aerodynamic performance. This might be explained by the fact that Newey was concerned with other projects apart from F1, and results from his work were seen shortly after was able to engage more with designing the Bull's car with Daniel scoring a win and 5 consecutive podiums, the longest streak for his career.
Yes, he got lucky (unlike Max) in most of the cases, but who would care when his car could only get better from now on. But we have to admit that he fought brilliantly for most of his podiums like in Austria where he defended against Hamilton, or Baku when he passed 3 cars in one corner that eventually proved to be the race winning move. He certainly has the qualities to fight for the title, and because people do not really point him as a title pretender, there is now none of this stress and high expectations that lie on Hamilton and Vettel for example, so he is the driver from top 4 that is most psychologically free.
With the last 6 races he has been continuously closing the gap to the top as he and Valtteri scored the most points in the last 4 races following some bad luck for Vettel and Hamilton. Even in his last race where he did not get on the podium, he still finished ahead of the championship leader, Vettel, and though not by much got one step closer to him.
With 10 races to go, he is currently 60 points away from Vettel.
That seems like a lot, doesn't it. But there are some examples from F1's history when the eventual winner had been in the same situation Dani is now. The most recent ones are Vettel's 2012 and Kimi's 2007 titles. Vettel came back from being 44 behind the leader 10 with 10 races until the end of the season. Kimi's case could be even more inspirational for Daniel as he was 45 points (in the current system) with 6 races remaining.
So looking at such examples and Daniel's outstanding performance in the recent races, one might think that Red Bull should really do their best during the summer pause in order to give him the tools to fight his way to the top, because he certainly can do so.
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