Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Red Bull focuses on race set-up due to penalties

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Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull focused on race set-up during Friday practice as it faces engine penalties at the Italian Grand Prix.

Renault's power unit has a power deficit which is accentuated on high-speed circuits such as Monza, leading Red Bull to take new units in order to ensure it doesn't face penalties in Singapore where it expects to be much more competitive. Ricciardo says the result was a focus on race set-up on Friday, with Red Bull likely to have to recover from the back of the grid.

"Today we did the most that we could," Ricciardo said. "We were focusing on race set-up knowing that we start from the back, so Sunday is going to be a lot more important for us.

"Mercedes we can’t fight, we can’t challenge. Maybe some rain will come but Sunday looks dry. We will just do what we can this week and see what happens in Singapore where we should be a lot stronger."

And Ricciardo admits it is frustrating experiencing the lack of power compared to other cars out on track.

"We lose quite a bit of time on the straights, so you are on the straight just driving and you can’t push the pedal any harder. We know that we are going to lose some time there. It is for sure the best place to take our (engine) penalties.

"This morning was okay and then this afternoon we did not do as much running and were outside the top 10 where we thought we’d probably be. We will see what we can do in the race. On Saturday it won’t be too busy for us."

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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.