The enemy within

I was sitting at the airport last week about to head off for the Singapore and Japan double header when a fellow passenger (and F1 fan) walked up to me and asked, ‘Do you think Daniel Ricciardo is depressed at the moment?’ Over the past year, I’ve often been asked what has happened to Daniel but this was a curveball.

Whilst I batted away the question with something flippant about him having £100m in the bank and needing no sympathy from me, it made me think of the psychological battering F1 drivers take when they’re being beaten by their teammates race after race. It’s unlike any other sport.

In cricket, rugby or football, a player is never compared to another individual quite so directly. In tennis, we could compare Roger Federer to Rafa Nadal or Novak Djokovic, but these players only go head-to-head a handful of times per year.