Daniel Ricciardo hopes that the Monza updates is not as damning as described by Yuki Tsunoda, who got to drive with it during F1 Italian GP.
The updates that Visa Cash App RB got in Spain didn’t work readily as the F1 team was forced to run a mix of new and old parts in the subsequent races. In Monza, they brought an updated floor to rectify some of the issues that they encountered.
Only Tsunoda got to run those updates and wasn’t readily impressed. He was knocked out in Q1 and the grand prix saw him retire early after contact with Nico Hulkenberg. This didn’t give him enough chance to collect data and understand more about the floor.
“The team wanted to read how the new floor behaves and we wanted to gather the data, but clearly in qualifying we were struggling with the car over one lap,” said Tsunoda to media. “We were at least hoping that in the race, at least a new floor would give some benefits, but now we couldn’t see any data.
“So it is more like that impact will be huge rather than results and everything. I hope those things wouldn’t affect much in future development. We have to see how the floor behaves, generally the car should perform well [in Baku], better than Monza, but also the floor comparison which we will take is not clear, for sure there is some downside of the new floor and yeah, have to understand it properly.”
The fear for Tsunoda is the updates downgrading the car rather than the opposite. Whatever they could see on the data from the amount they ran, it didn’t show good results and in fact, performed ‘worse’ than what the team it would.
But they need to check more to come to a proper conclusion. “We saw in data that things are unexpectedly worse than we thought and that probably is affecting couple of things but we have to compare…also some other things we are gaining from the old floor, so have to compare which is gaining more and which is losing more in terms of…that kind of downside and or benefits,” continued Tsunoda.
“I didn’t feel clear benefits from the floor. I came into the weekend with high expectations with this upgrade, and it didn’t seem to work, so I hope it is not a downgrade. We just didn’t have the pace and the limitations around the lap [compared to Ricciardo] are kind of similar.
“Whatever I do is just exaggerating limitations and I just keep sliding so it sucks but it is pretty hard to catch up. If you see the numbers [from the simulator], I should gain some lap time, but it is not even close to that and pretty far off from what we wanted for sure,” summed up Tsunoda, who insists that they are still in understanding phase.
He hopes that it works out in Baku. “There were couple of reasons with regard to the floor but we have to still understand properly,” said Tsunoda. “The numbers are there apparently but I didn’t feel that numbers in the track as to how it should perform. It was clear that I struggled in the data as well and lets see, Baku is a completely different track.
“Hopefully that numbers will be better on this track rather than Monza, coming from the track characteristics, you never know, I guess it is too early to say that it is not working but at least what I felt in Monza wasn’t great. As a driver when you compare to your teammate, how the car behaves, you can tell that it is a big difference and the car is not really behaving as I wanted.”
Since Ricciardo did not get to run the floor, for now, he has to relay on the data and feedback of his teammate. But the Australian is not going extreme as of now after hearing the Japanese driver’s comments. He wants to give it a go first before saying anything.
“I think the plan is to…unless the team see some strong negatives, the plan is to still run them in Baku,” said Ricciardo to media. “I think probably sometimes what you can’t predict is on track, it might produce more load, but maybe it shifts the balance and setting up the car is trickier.
“Maybe that is what we just didn’t get quite right to exploit all of the grip, but it is hard for me to speak on. I want to believe it can still be good, because obviously the last one wasn’t too good for us. I’d like to think this one is better but obviously only Yuki has the experience with it and he was vocal about having a tough weekend, so we will see.
“It is something I would definitely like to try and give at least a session and have a feel for it before maybe saying it is not the one. We obviously have reason to believe it is better, but I haven’t driven it, so I can’t say if it is better or not, but it has been tricky. I think a combination of low downforce and a new asphalt [at Monza] means it is quite peaky to find the grip and put laps together.”
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda on tangles in Monza
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