Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo frustrated at Red Bull issues

Daniel Ricciardo admits he is frustrated to have had so little running during Friday practice for the Australian Grand Prix.

Limited track time in FP1 due to a power unit issue turned in to a terminal problem for the day as an engine change prevented Ricciardo from running in the second session. With it being his home race and the first of the season, Ricciardo admits he is “more and more anxious to drive” in Melbourne.

“The whole week has been a bit of a tease,” Ricciardo said. “We have talked about racing a lot and today was my chance to do a few more laps, but obviously we have the next few days.

“I am more and more anxious to drive… I have ants in my pants. So it’s just a bit more frustrating. It helps having two cars on track rather than one, but we will pick ourselves up and do what we can over the weekend now. It is a small set-back but I think we can get our stuff together tomorrow morning in free practice three and still have a strong qualifying.”

Despite his frustrations, Ricciardo says it was the right decision for Red Bull to take its time with the engine change.

“There are no concerns about tomorrow now, it was a job not worth rushing to get five laps this afternoon. It was just do the work properly and make sure we had a race car that will do the laps tomorrow.

“I hold a lot of confidence that it will. It would be nice to get more laps in today but it is definitely too early in the weekend to be down, so we will pick ourselves up tomorrow.

“It helps having two cars on track but at least [Daniil] Kvyat had a pretty smooth session. I will listen in on the meeting and try and learn as much as they learnt.”

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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.