Video: Mad Mike gives Ricciardo a very drifty passenger lap

Daniel Ricciardo is an F1 driver. To him, going sideways in his Red Bull Formula One car is sacrilege. ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett is a professional drifter. To him, going straight in his 1,200bhp quad-rotor Mazda MX5 is sacrilege. So, as you might imagine, when these two worlds collide it provides for an interesting take on the best lines around Melbourne’s Albert Park.

Something that was demonstrated before last weekend’s F1 season opener. See, keen to give Daniel an insight into his smoky world, Mad Mike decided to give the honey badger a very sideways passenger lap around the 3.2-mile street circuit. 

With the quad-rotors brap, brap brapping away, Mad Mike spent the whole lap perfectly penduluming from corner to corner as the tyres screamed for mercy. As you can see in the video above, it looks pretty spectacular. 

Annoyingly, Danny Ric didn’t employ Mike’s tactics in the main race to spice things up. The big talking point from the race was Vettel leapfrogging past Lewis Hamilton to take the lead after a 'free pit-stop' under the Virtual Safety Car. Vettel ended up taking the chequered flag, ahead of Lewis with Kimi coming in third. Since the race, Mercedes has admitted that a bug in their computer software failed to warn the team that Hamilton was vulnerable. Facepalm. But, it looks like we're in for a Ferrari-Mercedes ding-dong for the season. Are you happy about that?