Daniel Ricciardo suggests that his current performance deficit to RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda resides in his inability to “carry the speed” through the corners that his teammate can with their VCARB 01.
Ricciardo’s lacklustre performance in qualifying last weekend in Melbourne, which saw him line up on the last row of the grid, ten spots behind Tsunoda, was followed by a run to P12 in Sunday’s race.
In a bid to try and improve his position in the running order at the outset of the 58-lap event, Ricciardo opted to start his race on Pirelli’s soft compound, one of only three drivers along with Lewis Hamilton and Zhou Guanyu to rely on the red-rimmed tyres.
But Ricciardo’s early switch to the hards after five laps was followed by a wave of tyre rotations in the field, which undermined his hope of benefitting from a clear track to make progress.
He nevertheless managed to carry himself up to P13, which became P12 at the checkered flag following George Russell’s crash on the penultimate lap of the race.
“I feel like everyone pitted really early as well, so yeah, obviously the idea was to try and come out and get a little bit of clear track, but I think everyone was pretty on it,” Ricciardo explained, quoted by Motorsportweek.com.
“Maybe they were struggling as well, I guess they started on the mediums so maybe that wasn’t too nice for them. So yeah. I don’t know.
“I don’t really know also how far we could have got through the pack. It probably worked a little bit. Could it have maybe worked more? I don’t know.
“When you’re at the back, you’ve got to try something. It certainly wasn’t silly. When I saw [Nico] Hulkenberg start on the Hard in front of me, I thought that was more of a gamble.
“I guess that paid off for him. I was quite surprised, his pace one lap one was pretty good. I thought his start and that, I thought he would have struggled a lot. It looked like they had that hooked up.”
While Ricciardo’s deficit to Tsunoda in qualifying offered a worrying prospect, there was little to choose between the two drivers in terms of lap time performance in their final stint of the race.
“So I feel like we were [better], the first stint on the hard, there was a VSC and straight after that, we opened up the graining,” he added. “So I think that stint, we were losing time.
“And then the second stint, once I cleared, I think it was Ocon maybe in an Alpine, I was able to get into the low 21s, and I think at the time that was really competitive.
“And then we kind of got blue flags and whatever after that. I think there were certainly some moments where it does look more encouraging.
“Even then, I still have some comments I think for the team, even when we are going fast, I think there’s some things that I feel like I’m missing.
“But certainly a little bit more encouraging. We’ll keep chipping away.
“Obviously want to reiterate to the team as well is that it’s not a confidence thing, it’s not like a, what the hell is this car going to do when I brake or when I turn. It’s not that.
“I feel a lot of the time I’m not able to carry the speed maybe that I see Yuki able to. See what I can do better. I’m asking plenty of questions to the team as well, so it’s a two-part process.”
It’s been a rocky to his 2024 campaign for Ricciardo. But when all was said and done after his home race, the RB charger offered – although not for the first time – a positive outlook on the near-term future.
“I’m asking the team a lot of questions, and I think we will have some bits and pieces come onto the car in the next kind of one, two races,” he said.
“I expect it to be a pretty quick turnaround, and before you know it, we’ll be doing great again… Nah I kind of say that jokingly, but I do believe it. So yeah, we’ll hopefully turn it around.”
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