Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

New chassis for Ricciardo but penalties likely

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Daniel Ricciardo will have a new chassis for the Austrian Grand Prix but admits Red Bull is likely to take power unit penalties.

While the team expected to struggle in Canada, Ricciardo was comfortably beaten by team-mate Daniil Kvyat and at a loss to explain the reasons for his lack of pace. As a result, Red Bull will provide Ricciardo with a new chassis this weekend and he says it is to rule out any deficiencies in the old one.

"We understood quite a lot post-Canada," Ricciardo said. "I think a lot of it as well was… I probably came in there quite in a way emotional from what happened there a year earlier and probably just hoping for too much. So that already probably set the target too high from the start and it sort of spiralled into a poor weekend, for obviously some other reasons as well.

"We come here now with let’s say a fresh approach on it all. I have a new chassis. I think we’ve got rid of any variables that were maybe there in Canada and ready to have a good weekend. We know the track doesn’t realty suit everything for our performance right now but hopefully have a good weekend here in front of the home fans."

However, with Renault's power unit having been unreliable in the early part of the season, Ricciardo expects the team to decide to take some penalties at a circuit it is likely to find challenging.

"It’s likely. We’re definitely looking into it. I think we’ll have a decision probably by this evening as to what we’ll do this weekend. It’s likely we’ll take a penalty here. If it’s not here it’s in the next few. We have to see as well what chance we have coming up in Silverstone and Budapest. Wouldn’t be a surprise if we see it here but probably a few hours away from a decision."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.