Daniel Ricciardo felt happy at the fag end of the first half of F1 2024 season, as he relayed about the then and now of Visa Cash App RB team.
Having had a slower start to his F1 2024 campaign and a change of chassis, Visa Cash App RB’s Ricciardo picked up his pace closer to summer break. He scored on handful of occasions and the ones where he has not, he has felt better on the pace side.
Granted it hasn’t been enough to warrant a Red Bull seat, but Ricciardo feels in a much better place with the car and his performances. “I mean, I’m definitely happier where I am now than the first few races this season,” he said. “I felt good all season, but it wasn’t quite clicking, for lack of a better word, the first few races.
“And I think then I’ve been able to get more out of myself, certainly the last few races. And I think it’s trending in the right direction. And I think that’s obviously important. Of course you want to be awesome every race, but I knew obviously after the first few that I still had to find a little bit, but I’m definitely happier.
“I’m more comfortable with where I’m at and yeah, just showing those signs of speed that I know I have. And that’s obviously… All of us are trying to extract that out of ourselves every weekend and some weekends come easier than others. But I think, yeah, I’m certainly sitting here now, much happier than probably, I don’t know, two or three months ago,” summed up Ricciardo.
Having been part of the then Toro Rosso, it has been long for Ricciardo to race for the Red Bull junior F1 team. The current status is more like a sister outfit with its own identity of Visa Cash App RB. And it feels different too as the Australian notes.
It feels more like a proper independent F1 team even though some of its goals remain the same. “Yeah, it does feel different, you know, and I think it’s easy to kind of rebrand it and say we’ve got a new look and with this and that, but your actions have to follow,” said Ricciardo. “And Laurent, Peter, Alan, a lot of guys that have come in have done that.
“It’s not that what was happening in the past with Franz, in that example, wasn’t the right thing, but a change sometimes is good. You bring in new ideas. They’ve all spent time in other teams, organisations. And yeah, it’s just a new way of looking at things. And I think that in itself and their intentions and the way they go about it has made people kind of stand up and say, alright, this isn’t a junior team anymore.
“We’re making, kind of, big boy decisions and we’re taking risks and we’re setting targets and high targets and ones that we realistically think that we can attain. So, it’s cool. It’s cool to see it. I’m probably too, in a way, like honest in myself that if it felt like a junior team still, I wouldn’t feel comfortable here. I’m 35 now. So, I think I would feel a bit out of place. And I certainly don’t. So I think that’s also a good way to probably comprehend it,” summed up Ricciardo.
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