Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Ferrari ‘a pretty big outside shot’

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Ferrari has a better chance of winning the drivers’ championship this year than Red Bull last year but remains “a pretty big outside shot”, according to Daniel Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel won the Hungarian Grand Prix ahead of the mid-season break - his second victory of 2015 - to leave himself 42 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton. Ricciardo himself was in a similar situation a year ago, and having won in Hungary also went on to win in Spa before any potential title challenge faded.

Asked about Ferrari’s hopes of putting more pressure on Mercedes, Ricciardo says Vettel has a better chance than he had last year but still doesn’t see him as a realistic title challenge without luck.

“I think they’re a bit like us last year,” Ricciardo said. “They’re probably closer than we were, but I think it’s still a pretty big outside shot. I think it’s going to need a few more poor races from Mercedes - and when I say poor I mean incidents or reliability issues - because if Seb is winning then naturally the Mercedes are going to be second and third.

“I don’t think he’ll be able to win that many races to take that many points from them, so unless he wins a few and they have some DNFs or something I still think Mercedes are hard to beat. The tight and twisty circuits Ferrari seem to be closer, but I think around here this weekend Mercedes will stretch their legs.”

Click here for a gallery of the biggest crashes at Spa-Francorchamps

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.