Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo has penned his first ‘Dan’s Diary’ page amid the COVID-19 pandemic, where he names five underrated F1 rivals he raced.

With plenty of time to kill, Ricciardo – from his farmhouse – penned a ‘Dan’s Diary’ with the first chapter being ‘My Five Most Underrated Opponents’. While writing the piece, the Australian noted that he has faced 62 different drivers in F1 since 2011.

When he made his debut in HRT, Ricciardo faced Vitantonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan as his teammates, before moving on to Toro Rosso against Jean-Eric Vergne. The list penned by his talks about F1 as a whole and not just his teammates.

In the 171 starts he has had, only three F1 drivers has been against him on the grid in all of those races, with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel being the obvious name, while Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was a surprise name as per Ricciardo.

Moving on to the list, Ricciardo explained the reasoning to name the five F1 rivals, and some were indeed a surprise picks. He started off with Swede Marcus Ericsson, against whom he raced from 2014 until 2018, but never as teammates.

His second name was Frenchman Jules Bianchi – again not as teammates – but he raced against him since 2013 until his accident in 2014. Ricciardo named Italian Liuzzi with whom he was partnered for a brief number of races in 2011 F1 season.

The remaining two names were of Spaniard Roberto Merhi and Brit Jenson Button, where he competed against the former in 2015 and the latter between 2011 and 2016 F1 seasons. He also mentions Robert Kubica and Paul di Resta.

Here’s an explanation from Ricciardo about why he chose them:

Here’s F1 joining Tik Tok stream

Here’s info about Renault furloughing

Here’s Esteban Ocon on Virtual GP and more

Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on Instagram Live

Here’s Daniil Kvyat on Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton

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