On the Austrian Grand Prix Daniel Ricciardo rebounded from a sluggish begin within the first observe session to finally end ninth in the primary occasion, delivering two hard-earned factors for Visa Money App RB F1 Group and quelling — for the second at the very least — rampant rumors about his F1 future.
After a “tough” Friday at Silverstone, he’ll want an analogous rebound to complete within the factors on the British Grand Prix.
Ricciardo completed in P13 throughout Friday’s first observe session and was behind the grid in P19 in FP2. Issues weren’t too a lot better on the opposite facet of the storage, as teammate Yuki Tsunoda’s spin in FP1 lower his session brief with him down in P20. Tsunoda got here again for FP2 and improved a bit on his time, posting the Sixteenth-fastest time of the session.
Each drivers are hoping for extra on Saturday.
“It was a tough day,” admitted Ricciardo within the workforce’s post-practice report. “We discovered some solutions for that trickiness in FP2 due to some points on the automobile by way of load. It was a little bit of a bummer as a result of clearly you continue to attempt to do what you possibly can, nevertheless it was a bit inconclusive on what our true tempo is. Normally, we’ll be attempting to work on just a few weaknesses we’ve seen and getting it higher for tomorrow.
“We’ll attempt to discover the course as soon as we have a look at the information, however I’m assured it’s nothing too bizarre,” Ricciardo added. “It’s going to be a tricky circuit this 12 months, however we must always be capable of clear that up and be additional up the grid than we had been as we speak.”
Tsunoda referred to his spin in FP1 as a lower than “splendid” approach to begin the weekend.
“I didn’t have the perfect begin to the race weekend with FP1 and misplaced some precious observe time, however we managed to gather loads of knowledge in FP2. I feel we all know the place we’re at now,” stated Tsunoda. “We didn’t anticipate to wrestle as a lot as we did in FP2, however there’s extra time to come back from us and I’m certain we will discover a couple extra tenths for tomorrow and combat for Q3. It doesn’t appear our automobile fairly fits these observe traits with the lengthy high-speed corners, however others simply appear to be stepping it up. They’re doing a superb job, so we’ll proceed working and combating for extra.”
VCARB Racing Director Alan Permane echoed the workforce’s drivers, calling Friday a “difficult” begin.
“A difficult day for us, beginning with Yuki’s spin, which value him virtually the entire first session. This meant he wasn’t as ready as he might have been for FP2 and didn’t get probably the most out of issues. He’s typically proud of the automobile although,” added Permane. Daniel struggled with some instability on the rear and it’s clear we’ve acquired work to do in a single day to search out some low-speed efficiency which is costing lap time. We could have one eye on the climate as rain is forecast for each days over the weekend and we’ll take this under consideration with our setup decisions. We have to get the whole lot excellent to provide our drivers a shot at Q3 tomorrow.”
As with the Austrian Grand Prix, Friday introduced much more wild rumors on the Ricciardo entrance. Whereas Crimson Bull Ring was abuzz with discuss that Ricciardo might be dealing with the drop at VCARB, Friday’s rumors included a wild swing in the other way, with hypothesis that the current run of poor type from Sergio Pérez — and Ricciardo’s upward pattern in current weeks — might open the door to a swap between the drivers.
German outlet Auto Motor und Sport reported on Friday that efficiency clauses in Pérez’s and Ricciardo’s contracts might make such a swap doable subsequent season. Reportedly, Crimson Bull is hoping to see enchancment from Pérez in Budapest and Spa.
As is usually the case, Dr. Helmut Marko fanned the flames much more, telling Auto Moto und Sport “[w]e’ll know extra by the summer time break,” whereas not dismissing the studies.
Tough, certainly.
