Daniel Ricciardo went in-depth to compare Renault R.S.20 with Mercedes W11 after a quick lap by Valtteri Bottas in the Barcelona F1 pre-season test.
From the top teams to those in the mid-field, and the backmarkers, there is a vast performance disparity between the cars produced by the F1 outfits. For example, Mercedes’ Bottas managed a 1m15.732s lap, while Ricciardo was third fastest with a 1m16.276s.
And, when analysing exactly where these tenths are gained, Ricciardo cited grip and downforce, using the blistering lap by Bottas in the Mercedes as a prime example. The Aussie also pointed out that in his car, the most he could hope for would be a 1m16.1s.
Ricciardo also then went on to compare R.S.20 and W11 on the basis of what he saw at the Barcelona test and where Renault maybe lacking to the Mercedes, where he feels that the French outfit is certainly behind the German rivals to start the 2020 F1 season.
“I think with the fuel effect, I think I could do a 1:14s, because we had 90 kilos [of fuel],” started Ricciardo to media including FormulaRapida.net. “So, it’s encouraging. What was I? A 1:16.2? I mean there’s always a tenth, but maybe the best for now would be a 16.0 or a 16.1, but I don’t think there was three tenths in it to get below the 1:16’s.
“But I made a good stint from the first C5 to the second. I found two or three tenths. Maybe I could find another couple, but I think we did okay with what we have. As for the weaknesses of our car, I think watching say, the lap of Bottas last week, and I think generally just comparing to the top for example, they have obviously a lot of rear grip, and the front as well seems like they can carry a lot of speed through the corner, really be quite aggressive on entries, and the rear is planted, but the front also has good bite so I guess simply [they have] a bit more grip and a bit more downforce.
“I think we have improved the overall balance of our car, I feel the rear for now is better. We’re able to get off the corner a bit harder, so there are certainly improvements. So far, reliability is strong and I know that’s an area which Renault were pushing on improving this year, and so far so good.”
In addition to this, Ricciardo spoke about where his car may stand relative to his more direct competitors, using his headline lap time once again as a guage. Largely, he was positive, however, he did admit that one fast lap in testing was not representative.
“Overall, it felt good,” said Ricciardo. “I think there’s two parts in terms of the way I feel. There’s the part where you’re reserved because it’s just testing, and we had the C5, and I know we’re not the only ones running the C5 but I also know that Lewis ran it, but we [already] know we’re not as quick as Mercedes now so I don’t know what they were doing.
“I’d like to think we’re as quick but I think I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. So I don’t necessarily get excited about the P1 [on the morning of day six], but in saying that, if I put the C5 on and we were in P6, then for sure I’d be disappointed. So it is nice, at least we put in a good lap, we were able to use a new tyre relatively well.
“So there’s positives, for sure, but as you guys know we’ve been doing this long enough to know that’s not necessarily what we’re going to qualify in in Melbourne. It is still positive for us to see, but we’ve extracted a quick time and so far, Valtteri was a quick one last week, with the ‘15, but I think we might have done the second quickest lap of the testing so far, so there’s something to say for it, for sure. It is positive.”
Here’s stats from Test 2 and also overall Barcelona figures
Here’s Esteban Ocon on how much he pushed in Barcelona tests
The story was edited by Darshan Chokhani