'50-50': Daniel Ricciardo hints at shock Supercars switch

Daniel Ricciardo has made the shock admission that he’s keen on racing in the Bathurst 1000.

The Aussie F1 star sampled Rick Kelly’s Nissan Altima Supercar during promotional work ahead of the Australian Grand Prix last week.

The F1 and Supercars were both in action at Albert Park last weekend, and Ricciardo cut a number of laps in Kelly’s Supercar at Calder, on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Ricciardo reportedly carved up, and is now said to be considering actually racing a Supercar in the future.

“I got asked not long ago ‘after F1 would you want to do some races, do something else like V8s or NASCAR or Le Mans?’,” he told Motorsport.com.

“When I first got into F1 a few years ago, I was like ‘yeah, that’d be awesome, I’d love to’.

“But the more years I do this, it kind of wears you out. And I thought ‘once I’m done, I think I’ll be done’.

“I’m probably kidding myself, because driving [the Supercar], it would be pretty cool [to race at Bathurst].

“I’ll never say never. I’d give it a good 50-50 at the moment.”

Kelly said he’d be happy to Ricciardo as his Bathurst partner.

“To see the way he got in, went out, and then he stepped it up every single lap, just crept up on the brake markers and changed his inputs to improve every single lap… I mean, that’s why he’s the champion he is, and for me to sit next to him in the car and witness that firsthand was pretty special,” Kelly said.

“It’d be pretty special to have that name on the car for October, but it wouldn’t be Dan co-driving with me, it’d be me co-driving with Dan.”

Alonso also open to Supercars

Ricciardo is the second F1 star to hint at racing at Bathurst, with Fernando Alonso linked to the great race last week.

Alonso, who beat Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher to F1 titles in 2005 and 2006, could race at Mount Panorama in 2020 in a Commodore, according to Zak Brown.

Brown is a co-owner of Supercars outfit Walkinshaw Andretti United and executive director of F1 team McLaren.

“He wants to go and win all the big races,” Brown said.

“He’s ticked the 24 Hours of Daytona box now, and he considers Bathurst to be a major sporting event.”