Daniel Ricciardo calls it peace of mind to try the new chassis in F1 Chinese GP recalling a moment from 2021 with McLaren.
Having had a difficult to start to his 2024 F1 campaign, Visa Cash App RB’s Ricciardo will have a new chassis in this weekend’s Chinese GP. While there is no certainty if this will solve the issues, but the Australian terms it more as peace of mind.
He recalls the moment with McLaren after his win Monza where the team changed his chassis, but he eventually reverted to the old one to feel better. “I’m still curious, for sure, because it’s something that at least… peace of mind,” said Ricciardo.
“Just through past experience, I’ll be honest, it was when I won Monza [2021], they wanted to retire that chassis. So I had a different one for Russia. And I was nowhere in Russia. I remember. So after that, I said, guys, I don’t want this chassis, give me the other one back. And then the next race was Austin, and we were back on it again.
“So yeah, there has been some times where I have been certainly sceptical about some chassis for whatever reason not performing well. So yeah, just wanted to want to make sure. I’ve been quite vocal about it. Because I’ve been obviously struggling a bit this year. It was always the plan to have to introduce that chassis here.
“I was obviously just putting my hand up – ‘whenever it’s ready, I’ll take it’. It’s one little box just to tick now and make sure that we’re all OK, and give me peace of mind,” summed up Ricciardo, who concurred with Alan Permane to note that there is no issue per se with the current chassis.
“We haven’t found anything wrong with what I had,” said Ricciardo. “Sometimes it’s if these things might be visible, might not. Maybe it’s just to clear my mind and have it; regardless, even if I had my old chassis, it doesn’t change my approach to the weekend. I still think I can make something happen.
“But it’s something now that I’m sure deep down it will help one way, shape or form.” While the team has elected to change, they don’t think there will be any difference as noted above. “The reason I say it’s ever so unlikely is because it really is, it’s not a performance differentiator,” he said.
“It’s a happy accident that we have one coming, and it doesn’t make sense to give it to Yuki – it makes sense to give it to Daniel, but we’re not bringing a new chassis because of his issues. Let me be clear about that, it’s just that it all fits together.”
Apart from the chassis, there was also a chatter around brake issues that Ricciardo may have had. But the Australian played down the notion that he is facing problems with his braking. He agrees that his style and Yuki Tsunoda’s style is different, but that doesn’t relates to a brake problem.
“No, we don’t, I think maybe they still reading quotes from my McLaren days (laughs),” said Ricciardo. “No, braking has been fine, obviously I am working on everything. Even when I got into the car in Budapest last year, it was quite obvious early that Yuki and I did have different styles of driving and it was obvious to do little bit with braking, so we do have a little bit of differences across us.
“For sure we try and maybe meet halfway, I take some of his good things, he takes some of mine, so yeah, braking is one thing that I work on but it is no different to any other part of corner. Has some of my lets say struggles this year been with braking? No, not specifically that.”
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda on hard from non-European drivers
Here’s Christian Horner, Helmut Marko on Yuki Tsunoda
Here’s Visa Cash App RB pair undertaking Pirelli test
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo, Alexander Albon on Japanese GP incident
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