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.
