(Motorsports news) With only the FP1 session to fine-tune the set-up, Ricciardo’s second F1 appearance with AlphaTauri was a difficult task. He was thrown into a sprint weekend that was adversely affected by weather. He made things more difficult for himself by missing his best time in Q1 at Eau Rouge due to a track rules violation, which dropped him to 19th on the starting line for Sunday’s main race.
Ricciardo gained inspiration from a respectable performance to 10th place in the sprint on Saturday on the slick track. On a day when teammate Yuki Tsunoda impressed by competing inside the top 10 and earning the final point, he made good progress in the early going of the dry grand prix but ultimately finished 16th.
The Australian claimed that for the majority of the race, he was lacking front-end grip and ultimate performance. When questioned about his performance, Ricciardo responded, “Ricciardo felt fairly, let’s say, constrained today in terms of pace. “I believe that I was straining a lot even in the clean air. In all honesty, I was simply washing out by the time I reached the front end, all the way through the middle sector, and all the high-speed parts.
“I was sliding and overheating pretty quickly. It wasn’t likely that we weren’t turning the tires on; rather, it was likely that they weren’t creating enough traction. “We couldn’t separate from the group in the open air. They appeared to be able to get greater mileage out of their tires sooner. Since we all had new tires at the time, Ricciardo was then frequently passed by other vehicles.
I would have a somewhat faster speed when it calmed down, but I would still lag behind them. Furthermore, we are aware that this is bad for tires as well, as is clear. So, it’s a challenging race. I don’t want to sound too dejected, but it was the only dry session we had all weekend, so it might have been a simple setup error. I just wish I had been able to attack a little bit more, though.
I was always around cars that were quite swift on straightaways, he continued. I spent today observing many gearboxes. People have gearboxes in their homes that resemble mantles. I don’t really want to see any more because it’s not really my thing. Ricciardo concurred that Spa brought the AT04’s flaws to light more so than the Hungaroring’s high downforce.
He said, “I didn’t feel like the car was on today.” “So even for the specified downforce, I felt like we weren’t really getting that peak out of it with a fresh tyre. With the given downforce, I thought we weren’t really maximizing it with a fresh tire. I wasn’t really feeling it bite and load up, either. Therefore, that’s presumably the area where we’ll try to figure out what we missed.
“The track seemed green, and it did feel like it was quite typical weather, especially with the rain all weekend. The pace of the race seemed to be rather slow. All of these factors thus likely have an impact. Learning is a constant. “I also believe that I will always be fairly hard on myself. But just now, I shouldn’t hold out hope for the world. We’re all still learning, but perhaps we’ll find some more solutions. Ricciardo concurred that his lack of familiarity with his vehicle and its tyres in comparison to competitors was a contributing issue.
Yes, I believe we missed a tiny bit, but I’m sure there is a small amount of that. Both, I’m sure, to some extent. Having said that, I’m delighted I once again learned the race’s length. “There is plenty to learn and much to share with the team. I noticed Yuki placed 10th. So it appeared that he ran a respectable race. Try to take something away from that as well.
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