Daniel Ricciardo stresses that Visa Cash App RB’s weakness still is the higher speed things, as he talks about the latest updates.
Despite a goodish haul of points so far in 2024 F1 season, Ricciardo has stressed on the weakness that Visa Cash App RB has which is hurting them in the races. Having enjoyed a trouble-free run in the points table, they now have Haas on their tail.
This will force them to improve their car where they are struggling with the high-speed section. “I still feel like our strengths are in a little bit more the lower speed stuff and our weaknesses are a bit more in the real quick stuff,” said Ricciardo to media.
“So even Turn 10 during the Belgian G[, I was like, especially, you know, when the team’s all right, we’re going to the end and tyres look fine. So at that point, you’re pretty much flat out till the end. Even then, I felt like Ocon with lower downforce, because they were quite quick in the straight, I’m assuming their lower downforce.
“He was still pretty quick in Turn 10. And so yeah, I think real, real high speed, we still got to work on a bit. But all the kind of tighter, twistier stuff, we seem to be all right. So yeah, probably same characteristics. Just now load and yeah, load is our friend. So maybe I put on some weight over the break and that’ll help,” summed up Ricciardo.
There were hopes pinned on the Barcelona update to solve their issues, but it didn’t as per the expectation. They went the hybrid route in some of the races and it sort of worked in Hungary. But Ricciardo believes, it was more down to the circuit layout.
They are still not 100% with the updates and are in the learning process to understand what is working and what is not. “I mean, the circuit helped us, because I think we were pretty strong already from Friday,” recalled Ricciardo. “And we hit the ground running, and we didn’t really have to chase it. It just came, and that was that.
“So some circuits certainly help. But it’s still so unpredictable. Did we know we would be really strong in Budapest? Not necessarily, but yeah, I think we’ve a bit more time now, we’ve understood everything and we, yeah, you just, I guess it helps getting to the weekend with a better understanding of the package and then knowing, okay, we pretty much know the window of what this car likes, the set-up.
“Okay, it’s a big downforce circuit, so let’s see what that does, but… We had a bit more confidence, I guess. I feel like I just repeated myself a lot. But yeah, we’ll see. I don’t know. It’s the midfield, the midfield mystery. It’s always pretty unpredictable where we are,” summed up Ricciardo.
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on Belgian GP performance
Here’s Red Bull trio on critical Belgian GP weekend
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