Tag: yuki

Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda hoping to rebound after ‘tricky’ start to British Grand Prix daniel,ricciardo,and,yuki,tsunoda,hoping,to,rebound,after,tricky,start,to,british,grand,prix,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one

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At the Austrian Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo rebounded from a slow start in the first practice session to ultimately finish ninth in the main event, delivering two hard-earned points for Visa Cash App RB F1 Team and quelling — for the moment at least — rampant rumors about his F1 future.

After a “tricky” Friday at Silverstone, he will need a similar rebound to finish in the points at the British Grand Prix.

Ricciardo finished in P13 during Friday’s first practice session and was at the back of the grid in P19 in FP2. Things were not too much better on the other side of the garage, as teammate Yuki Tsunoda’s spin in FP1 cut his session short with him down in P20. Tsunoda came back for FP2 and improved a bit on his time, posting the 16th-fastest time of the session.

Both drivers are hoping for more on Saturday.

“It was a tricky day,” admitted Ricciardo in the team’s post-practice report. “We found some answers for that trickiness in FP2 due to a few issues on the car in terms of load. It was a bit of a bummer because obviously you still try to do what you can, but it was a bit inconclusive on what our true pace is. In general, we’ll be trying to work on a few weaknesses we’ve seen and getting it better for tomorrow.

“We’ll try to find the course once we look at the data, but I’m confident it’s nothing too weird,” Ricciardo added. “It’s going to be a tough circuit this year, but we should be able to clean that up and be further up the grid than we were today.”

Tsunoda referred to his spin in FP1 as a less than “ideal” way to start the weekend.

“I didn’t have the ideal start to the race weekend with FP1 and lost some valuable track time, but we managed to collect plenty of data in FP2. I think we know where we’re at now,” said Tsunoda. “We didn’t expect to struggle as much as we did in FP2, but there’s more time to come from us and I’m sure we can find a couple more tenths for tomorrow and fight for Q3. It doesn’t seem our car quite suits these track characteristics with the long high-speed corners, but others just seem to be stepping it up. They’re doing a good job, so we’ll continue working and fighting for more.”

VCARB Racing Director Alan Permane echoed the team’s drivers, calling Friday a “challenging” start.

“A challenging day for us, starting with Yuki’s spin, which cost him almost all of the first session. This meant he wasn’t as prepared as he could have been for FP2 and didn’t get the most out of things. He’s generally happy with the car though,” added Permane. Daniel struggled with some instability at the rear and it’s clear we’ve got work to do overnight to find some low-speed performance which is costing lap time. We will have one eye on the weather as rain is forecast for both days over the weekend and we will take this into account with our setup choices. We need to get everything perfect to give our drivers a shot at Q3 tomorrow.”

As with the Austrian Grand Prix, Friday brought even more wild rumors on the Ricciardo front. While Red Bull Ring was abuzz with talk that Ricciardo could be facing the drop at VCARB, Friday’s rumors included a wild swing in the opposite direction, with speculation that the recent run of poor form from Sergio Pérez — and Ricciardo’s upward trend in recent weeks — could open the door to a swap between the drivers.

German outlet Auto Motor und Sport reported on Friday that performance clauses in Pérez’s and Ricciardo’s contracts could make such a swap possible next season. Reportedly, Red Bull is hoping to see improvement from Pérez in Budapest and Spa.

As is often the case, Dr. Helmut Marko fanned the flames even more, telling Auto Moto und Sport “[w]e’ll know more by the summer break,” while not dismissing the reports.

Tricky, indeed.

Yuki Tsunoda ‘horrified,’ apologizes after fine for offensive language at Austrian GP yuki,tsunoda,horrified,apologizes,after,fine,for,offensive,language,at,austrian,gp,sbnation,com,front-page,formula-one,2024-formula-one

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A “horrified” Yuki Tsunoda has issued an apology after race officials fined the Visa Cash App RB F1 Team driver €40,000 for using ableist language during Saturday’s qualifying session at the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix.

Tsunoda was summoned to meet with race officials following the qualifying session, after an exchange with race engineer Mattia Spini during the first segment of qualifying. As Tsunoda was waiting in his RB01 as cars queued up during Q1 Tsunoda exclaimed over his team radio “[t]he guys are f——— r———-,” to which Spini replied simply “Yuki no worries, don’t worry, plenty of time.”

When Tsunoda met with race officials, he apologized for the comment and explained that because English is not his first language, he was not fully aware of the meaning of his comments. According to the decision from race officials the statement violated Article 12.2.1 k) of the International Sporting Code in the following manner:

“[d]uring the hearing the driver was very apologetic and explained that because English is not his first language he was unaware until after the session what the meaning of the words used is in the English language. He said that he was horrified when he learned this. He contended that his understanding of the words was different, but acknowledged that this should not be considered as an excuse for what he did.”

In their decision race officials noted that while they appreciate Tsunoda’s “honesty,” a penalty is appropriate to “reinforce the fact that the words used are offensive and wholly inappropriate.”

“The Stewards appreciate the honesty of the driver, but reinforce the fact the words used are offensive and wholly inappropriate. To have used such words over a platform that is available to the public amounted to misconduct as defined in Article 20 of the International Sporting Code,” read the decision.

However, officials took Tsunoda’s “genuine remorse” into consideration and suspended part of the fine. “Considering the circumstances, the Stewards determine that a severe fine is required, but also take into account the genuine remorse of the driver and his offer to issue a public apology and for these reasons decided to suspend part of the fine imposed,” continued the stewards.

Under this part of the decision half of the fine — €20,000 —- will be suspended until the end of the season providing Tsunoda does not repeat such conduct.

As indicated by the officials, the driver issued a public apology on all his social media channels:

Tsunoda is set to start 14th in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix.

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.”