Oliver Rudgewick takes a look at the careers of both Daniel Ricciardo and Mick Doohan ahead of their East London appearance.
Formula One driver Daniel Riccardo and Moto GP legend Mick Doohan will form the Australian team at the Race of Champions Nations Cup next month at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Daniel Riccardo is heading towards the peak of his career at Red Bull Racing, with the forever-smiling Aussie picking up three wins in his maiden season with the team.
Riccardo started his Formula One career in 2011 with Hispania Race Team at the British Grand Prix replacing Narain Karthikeyan. Riccardo was able to challenge his far more experienced teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, which earnt him a drive at Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso for the 2012 season.
The 26-year old partnered Jean-Eric Vergne at Toro Rosso which started an immense battle between the pair as they fought to take the vacant seat at Red Bull after Aussie Mark Webber announced his retirement.
Despite Vergne and Riccardo being evenly matched in their two years at Toro Rosso, Riccardo got the call up to move into the senior team alongside Sebastian Vettel.
Riccardo quickly asserted himself alongside the four-time world champion and picked up three wins in the 2014 season at Canada, Hungary and Belgium.
This is Ricciardo’s first appearance at the Race of Champions, whereas his teammate Doohan will enter his fifth Race of Champions meeting at the Olympic Stadium.
Serious injury
Doohan has retired from professional racing, but the 50-year old is still the third most successful rider in Moto GP history with five consecutive Moto GP World Championship wins between 1994 and 1998. Only Italians Valentino Rossi and Giacomo Agostini hold more titles with seven and eight respectively.
Doohan started his career in 1984 aged just 19 and made his Moto GP debut in 1989 and was runner up in his second year.
He picked up his first win at the 1990 Hungarian Grand Prix which saw him mount a serious title challenge in 1992.
Doohan appeared to be on his way to winning his first world championship in 1992, but he was seriously injured in a practice crash before the 1992 Dutch TT.
He suffered serious and permanent damage to his right leg and, at one stage faced having it amputated.
At the time, Doohan was 65 points in the lead of the championship, but could not compete for eight weeks after the crash. After an arduous recovery, Doohan returned to racing for the final two races but could not prevent Yamaha rider Wayne Rainey from winning his third consecutive title by four points.
Despite, his Injures Doohan went on to dominate Moto GP with five consecutive world championship titles.
However, another serious crash at the 1998 Jerez Grand Prix caused Doohan to retire from professional racing after breaking his leg in multiple places during the race.
Doohan has competed in four Race of Champion events. His best finish came in 2009 when he made it to the semi-finals in the legends race where he was beaten by the eventual winner, British circuit racing driver, Andy Priaulx.
In 2012 Doohan also reached the semi-final of the Nations Cup with V8 supercar racer Jamie Whincup.
With Riccardo and Doohan in the driving seat Australia have their sights firmly set on becoming 2015 Race of Champions winners.