Picture yourself waiting for the signal to change, hands firmly on the wheel of your turbine assisted pony car, when in the lane alongside you, a hybrid pulls up. You smile smugly, but when the light changes, the hybrid leaves you in its small carbon-footprint dust.
Now you have some idea of how Daniel Ricciardo must feel when he takes his docile Renault powered Team Red Bull F1 car to the track, knowing that he is severely outgunned by the Mercedes and Ferraris on all sides.
If Ricciardo does stick with the team following 2018, he will have the opportunity to see what sort of propulsion unit Honda can supply, as Red Bull has cut ties with the Renault company to see what can be done to establish parity at least, superiority hopefully, for the 2019 season.
Mercedes and Ferrari have not stood pat, either. They have made another leap forward, aware of the primary reality that is more or less the pervasive one of F1 racing: He who starts in front finishes in front.
The British Grand Prix demonstrated that it is now Ferrari that is fielding the superior car.
The Silverstone track does offer some fast corners, but overtaking in an F1 race is often a rare thing and with cars that can run flat-out because of high aerodynamic ground forces, the only way to gain an edge is to have the most powerful unit.
The performance numbers from Silverstone were disturbing from a Red Bull perspective. They are down by nearly 7km/hr in some sections of the course where speed data is collected.
The Red Bull cars are reputed to produce the most downforce, but on a track such as Silverstone, high downforces are the relative equivalent of driving with your foot on the brake and gas pedal at the same time.
It was patently obvious at the British Grand Prix, where Riccardo could not even get close to Valtteri Bottas, despite having fresher tyres.
