Ricciardo: Leclerc a 'delayed version' of Jules Bianchi

Daniel Ricciardo believes that Charles Leclerc's current achievements  in F1 mirror what his good friend and mentor, the late Jules Bianchi, would have accomplished in his career.

In a post a social media entitled "Dan's Diary", Ricciardo named the five most underrated opponents with whom he's shared the grid in F1, citing Bianchi along with Marcus Ericsson, Tonio Liuzzi, Roberto Merhi and Jenson Button.

A Ferrari protégé whose path to a full-time seat with the Scuderia was inevitable, Bianchi succumbed in July 2015 to head injuries sustained in the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014 while racing with the Marussia team.

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"It wasn't like Jules was underrated, but we never got to see him in a top car, so maybe people didn't appreciate how good he was going to be," Ricciardo wrote in a heartfelt tribute to the French driver.

"You think of his drive in that Marussia in Monaco in 2014, the team's first points… Monaco is like Macau in that there's no way to fluke a result there. It was absolutely on merit.

"As a junior through karting, Jules was the guy," added the Aussie.

"We met training at Formula Medicine in Viareggio in Italy and everyone, even at that age when we were all 17, everyone treated him like he was an F1 driver already.

"I got to know him and we became friends, and I quickly got to know who he was and what he'd done before I arrived in Europe."

"It's another part of what makes his story so sad, because [Bianchi] would have been in a top team and a race winner by now for sure."

As a tight-knit group infused with the passion of racing, the Bianchi and Leclerc families shared their joys and triumphs in karting and in motorsport's junior ranks.

From the outset, Jules was Charles' surrogate big brother who oversaw the Monegasque's debut on the Bianchi family's karting track in Brignoles, near Marseille.

While on his path to F1 which he reached in 2013, Bianchi continued to guide his young protégé who would later follow in his elder's footsteps, all the way to the gates of Maranello.

"In some ways, I feel Charles is doing now what Jules would have been doing," Riccardo said.

"It's like Charles is the delayed version of what Jules would have done with the success he's having."

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