Daniel Ricciardo in Formula One title hunt is no longer laughable

Two months ago the idea would have been laughable: Red Bull Racing’s rookie Daniel Ricciardo winning the Formula One championship.

Now, the notion still remains highly unlikely but not nearly so ludicrous.

With Ricciardo’s win at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, his second victory of the season, the 25-year-old Australian is now third in the title standings. (His first win came in Canada on June 8.)

He’s 71 points behind leader Nico Rosberg of the Mercedes team, who has four wins this season, and 60 points behind Rosberg’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton, who’s won the other five races.

Overtaking both Mercedes drivers would be a very tall order. But there are eight races left in the season, including the U.S. Grand Prix on Nov. 2 at the Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, Texas.

Formula One awards points on a sliding scale to the top 10 finishers in a race, from 25 points to the winner down to one point for the 10th-place driver.

And there’s a season-ending quirk this year. Formula One will award double points to drivers in the season finale Nov. 23 in Abu Dhabi. And if Ricciardo (pronounced Ric-ar-do) closes the gap significantly by then, Abu Dhabi could prove highly entertaining.

That’s a big if, of course, given the Mercedes team’s domination this year. But the ever-smiling Ricciardo -- whom Hamilton on Sunday called “one of the nicest guys in the paddock” -- isn’t counting anything out.

“Realistically we’re still a long way off,” Ricciardo said after his win in Hungary. “I think with the Abu Dhabi system they’ve applied this year, it’s still going to be pretty open until late in the season. We’ll just keep doing what we can.”

In the meantime, here’s something else few would have believed at season’s start: Ricciardo is now 43 points ahead of his teammate Sebastian Vettel -- the German who’s won the last four consecutive Formula One championships. Vettel, without a win this year, is sixth in the standings.

Formula One is now on an extended summer break; it’s next race is the Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps track on Aug. 24.

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