Tag: saturday

Daniel Ricciardo not making any proclamations after frustrating Saturday for VCARB at the British Grand Prix daniel,ricciardo,not,making,any,proclamations,after,frustrating,saturday,for,vcarb,at,the,british,grand,prix,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one

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A week ago at the Austrian Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo delivered a bold statement despite missing out on the third segment of qualifying. Ricciardo outlined how the RB01 was a “top ten” car despite his elimination in Q2, and he backed up that proclamation with a points finish at Red Bull Ring.

There were no similar proclamations from Ricciardo following Saturday’s qualifying session at the British Grand Prix.

Ricciardo and teammate Yuki Tsunoda were both eliminated in Q2, with Tsunoda set to start 13th in the main event Sunday, and Ricciardo behind him in 15th. To hear the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team driver tell it, he was not “happy” with how things unfolded on Saturday at Silverstone.

“I’m not particularly happy with today’s qualifying; it wasn’t a good session, and this is something we need to figure out,” said Ricciardo. “Both runs in Q2 didn’t go as expected, and we struggled to get the lap in, leading me to do some overtaking in the last corner, which is something I hate when people do it to me.

“I started my last push lap a couple of seconds behind Zhou [Guanyu], and with the dirty air, you’re never going to get a good lap. The last three weekends haven’t been easy, but we found a way to make it work,” added Ricciardo. “Coming into Silverstone with the same struggles has also added to today’s frustrations because we don’t have the luxury to be able to get things wrong. We’ll address all we need during tonight’s debrief and look ahead at the race.”

While Ricciardo was frustrated with how Saturday played out, his teammate was a bit more pleased with the session.

“I’m happy with how we handled today; the team and I worked well together and communicated during qualifying to adapt to the changing weather conditions,” described Tsunoda. “We knew it would be difficult coming into quali because we’ve been lacking pace throughout Free Practice, and it’s a shame we haven’t been able to quite turn it around as much as we would’ve liked to, but the field is tight, and anything can happen.

“We’re struggling with pace in the high-speed corners at this track, which is similar to last week, but we’ll work hard to maximise our performance tomorrow. We had good pace in the wet and we’ll adapt based on the weather conditions and communicate, that’s the key.”

VCARB Technical Director Jody Egginton noted that the team might not have put Ricciardo in the best position during Q2, but that there is potential for the team on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t put Daniel in good enough conditions for his final run in Q2 which got him caught up in a lot of traffic, altering his position for tomorrow,” said Egginton. “We find ourselves slightly back from where we want to be, but laps time deltas to the cars around us are small and the team is pushing hard to extract everything from the car.”

Salvaging something on Sunday could be critical for the team in their fight with Haas in the F1 Constructors’ Championship. VCARB currently sits in sixth place in the standings, 11 points clear of Haas. But with Nico Hülkenberg starting sixth on Sunday Haas has tremendous potential to cut into that lead. If Riccardo and/or Tsunoda can find a way to forge into the points, it would be a massive step for the team.

And it would perhaps ease some of the frustration Ricciardo is feeling this Saturday at Silverstone.

Daniel Ricciardo delivers on his Saturday promise at the Austrian Grand Prix daniel,ricciardo,delivers,on,his,saturday,promise,at,the,austrian,grand,prix,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

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Daniel Ricciardo’s millions of fans might want him to keep making predictions.

A year ago at the Mexico City Grand Prix the Formula 1 driver declared that his car had top ten potential after the first two practice sessions. Ricciardo proved that over the next two days, qualifying fourth for the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix and then finishing seventh in the main event. It was Ricciardo’s best result after his shocking mid-season return to the grid, and went a long way towards him keeping that seat for the 2024 campaign.

On Saturday at Red Bull Ring Ricciardo just missed out on Q3, finishing 0.015 seconds behind tenth-place finisher Esteban Ocon. That saw Ricciardo’s qualifying session for the Austrian Grand Prix end in Q2, but the Australian driver remained as optimistic as ever, offering another slight prediction following qualifying.

“Of course, it’s frustrating to miss out on Q3 by just a few milliseconds this afternoon, but at the same time, it’s a more positive one as I think we made some progress since yesterday and it’s something we have to be proud of,” said Ricciardo in Visa Cash App RB F1 Team’s post-qualifying report Saturday. “I think we still need to find something a little bit extra for tomorrow but today’s qualifying put us in a much better position for the race. It’s going to be a longer one with pit stops and [tire] differences, so there’s no reason to believe we can’t be a top ten car tomorrow.”

On Sunday, Ricciardo proved himself right.

Ricciardo started his 250th-career F1 race in P11, but moved up into the top ten, running a clean race to secure P9 and add two massive points to his account on the year. The team used an early pit stop, allowing Ricciardo to undercut some of his competitors on the track, particularly the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.

Following the race, the driver talked about the “step forward” on his side of the garage.

“It was a tough race and I think we were a bit more on the [defense], so it took a lot of concentration and effort,” said Ricciardo in the team’s post-race report. “I had a good start on the outside and was looking good, but then I lost a couple of positions as there was no more room and I had to go wide.

“Once we settled after the start of the race, I think we did well; the team did a good job with the strategy to secure the position over the Alpines, and then I feel like I drove a good defence against Fernando [Alonso] and then Pierre [Gasly] in the last stint. We made a nice step from Barcelona, and it’s been a better weekend, so I’m happy to bring home some points. Now we’ll try to make another good step forward for Silverstone and then maybe that puts us in another fight for points.”

The finish comes at a time the Australian driver badly needed a result like this finish. The week of the Australian Grand Prix began with renewed questions about Ricciardo’s future in the sport. Between Dr. Helmut Marko outlining how Red Bull shareholders might want to see a younger driver in the seat — cue the camera pan to Liam Lawson — and noted F1 journalist Joe Saward speculating that Lawson might be in the seat before summer gives way to autumn, to say Ricciardo was under pressure would be an understatement.

The VCARB driver noted that pressure on Thursday, outlining how his “performance” and not his trademark smile would be the reason he kept his seat on the grid.

Sunday, following yet another prediction from him, Ricciardo delivered the kind of performance he needed.

He might want to make some more predictions.

Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo remaining ‘positive’ despite hard Saturday at Spanish GP yuki,tsunoda,and,daniel,ricciardo,remaining,positive,despite,hard,saturday,at,spanish,gp,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

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Visa Cash App RB F1 Team has come away with points in four straight races, dating back to the Miami Grand Prix. That weekend saw both Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda finish in the points in the F1 Sprint Race — a result Ricciardo enjoyed deep into the afternoon in Miami, even after his struggles in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix — and kicked off a string of good results for the team, including Ricciardo’s P8 in the Canadian Grand Prix.

That streak appears headed for an end at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Like many teams, VCARB brought a series of upgrades to Barcelona, but those upgrades have yet to materialize into results on the track. After a Friday that saw both drivers at the back of the field, the team hoped the data would uncover some answers for improved lap times on Saturday.

No such luck. Both Ricciardo and Tsunoda were eliminated in Q1, and they will start alongside each other in the ninth row on Sunday, with Tsunoda in P17 and Ricciardo in P18.

Despite that result, both drivers remained positive in their post-qualifying comments.

“We’ve been struggling with pace this weekend and tried multiple things to try and improve, and in the end, I felt better in qualifying than in Free Practice. At least I’m happy with my lap and feel like I was able to maximise the current package,” said Tsunoda. “The last races have been going well and even if it’s a shame, I think it’s important that we’re facing this more difficult moment together as a team. It’s a good opportunity to learn from our struggles and grow as a team. The most important thing is to remain positive, and we certainly will.”

While the lap times were not there for Ricciardo, he still believes that the team made progress overnight with the setup.

“It’s a tricky weekend. We have a lot of new parts on the car, and we still need to understand the best way to make them work,” began Ricciardo. “After yesterday, when we were still finding a bit of balance, we made pretty big changes overnight and today in qualifying the car felt much more together.

“We made progress in terms of feeling and balance, but unfortunately, we’re still in a tough spot in terms of the stopwatch. Being out of Q1 with both cars, especially using three sets of soft each, shows that at the moment, we don’t have the pace,” continued the VCARB driver. “There’s still more to find and we’ll keep chipping away. Tomorrow is going to come around quick, but we have a few races ahead of us with similar track characteristics, so we obviously need to figure out together the things we’re missing.”

Jody Egginton, the team’s Technical Director, praised both drivers for their feedback to the team. While VCARB may not be happy with the results at the moment, Egginton sounded hopeful that this weekend has laid the groundwork for further progress over the rest of the year.

“In terms of car balance, there has been some improvement,” began Egginton. “This alone has not been enough, so clearly, we have a lot of homework to do tonight, but also ahead of Austria, to extract more from the car and a large part of this work will be [analyzing] in detail the aero data we have gathered here in Barcelona.

“On the flip side, both drivers have done a good job of supporting the engineering team with feedback on the numerous test items we have evaluated here and also extracting the maximum from the cars we have been able to provide them with, so we have plenty of data to work with to make the necessary steps forward.”