Rear wing gambit fails to pay off for Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing, Belgian Grand Prix practice

Red Bull's strategy of going for an extremely thin rear wing set-up on Daniel Ricciardo's car proved to be the wrong one at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.

Ricciardo ended the day eighth tenths slower than his Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen. Despite setting fastest times in the first and third parts of the circuit, he lost any of the hoped-for performance advantage in the middle of his flying lap.

“We tried," Ricciardo said afterwards. "I would have liked it to have worked but it didn’t.

"The first and third sector is very fast and in the second sector you need the downforce," he explained. "The middle sector I’m in probably a Formula 3 car.

"I tried to be quick in the first and third part, but the compromise wasn’t good enough. I still lost too much in the second sector.

"Yes, there was some traffic as well. Without that I could’ve probably gone a few tenths quicker. But it still wouldn’t have put me in the top five.

"For sure we won’t keep the same set-up tomorrow," he said. ""The objective is not to lose too much time on the straights.

"Whether we’ll go in Max’s direction or try to find a better compromise between the two we’ll see," he added. "But we’ll definitely be stronger tomorrow."

Verstappen doubts Red Bull can measure up to rivals

Although he was faster on Friday than his team mate, Verstappen said that the day as a whole had been "nothing special".

"At the moment we don’t seem too far off the two top teams but it is only Friday," he said. "I’m sure it will be a different gap tomorrow.

"It’s hard here to find the set-up to be competitive on the straights but also balanced in the corners. We will make some steps in the right direction tonight, hopefully.

"In the dry I think we will be the solid third team like we have seen so far this season," he offered.

Verstappen added that he was buoyed up by the amount of support he was getting from Dutch fans who had flooded across the border to attend the race.

"There is already a lot of orange to be seen in the crowd and it’s only Friday!" he said.

"I’m expecting to see a lot more tomorrow and Sunday which is really great and nice to see so many fans supporting me. It always helps come race day.”

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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.