Ricciardo puts blame for FP1 mishap on gusty tailwinds

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Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo said that windy conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya were to blame for his accident in Friday's first free practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Ricciardo went off into the gravel at turn 4, and was unable to stop the car before it made crunching contact with the wall. The RB14 suffered front wing and left suspension damage as a result.

"The mistake in to Turn 4 this morning was a costly one," the Australian admitted later. "I missed the final hour of the session because of it.

"Tail winds are a big thing in F1," he explained. "In any corners with a tail wind you lose a lot of rear grip. Turn 4 is a bad corner to have a tail wind and it caught me and a few others out.

"Of course you don’t want to crash but if I’m trying to find a silver lining, then FP1 is probably the best time to do it."

FP2: Hamilton takes charge in Barcelona as Raikkonen hits problems

The car was swiftly returned to the Red Bull garage, enabling the mechanics to get a jump start on fixing the damage over lunch. Ricciardo was able to take part in the afternoon session without further delay.

"FP2 is the one where you do your race and qualifying simulations," noted Ricciardo. "We got our heads down and put the laps in this afternoon

"[That] was important with the updates to the car," he added. "There are quite a few aerodynamicists here today so we needed the laps to give them as much feedback as possible."

Ricciardo went on to set the second fastest time of the afternoon, just 0.133s behind the time of Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes. Notably, all the fatest laps were set early in the session and drivers struggled to improve when they switched to supersoft tyres mid-session.

"On the soft tyre we were quite fast," he continued. "[But] we didn’t really get the supersoft working, which I don’t think many people did. It looks like it will be a tricky tyre this weekend."

After that, teams settled down to long distance race simulation runs.

"At the end with high fuel I think we were okay," reported Ricciardo. "But I’m sure we can still be better. We have found some pace, there is still a bit more to find, but overall a pretty good end to a Friday.”

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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.