Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that he can’t “carry the speed” into corners as Yuki Tsunoda after trailing his RB Formula 1 team-mate again at the Australian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo’s miserable start to the 2024 season continued at his home round as he had his best lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and was eliminated in Q1.
RB had elected to start Ricciardo on the Soft compound and pitted him on Lap 5 to gain an undercut, but other teams reacted to that call and nullified the advantage.
While the Australian would box earlier than his nearest rivals at the second round of stops, he was unable to get ahead of the Haas drivers to battle for a points finish.
Despite Max Verstappen and both Mercedes drivers failing to reach the chequered flag, Ricciardo had to settle for 12th as team-mate Yuki Tsunoda secured seventh.
“I feel like everyone pitted really early as well, so yeah, obviously the idea was to try and come out and get a little bit of clear track, but I think everyone was pretty on it,” he said.
“Maybe they were struggling as well, I guess they started on the Mediums so maybe that wasn’t too nice for them. So yeah. I don’t know.
“I don’t really know also how far we could have got through the pack. It probably worked a little bit. Could it have maybe worked more? I don’t know.
“When you’re at the back, you’ve got to try something. It certainly wasn’t silly. When I saw [Nico] Hulkenberg start on the Hard in front of me, I thought that was more of a gamble. I guess that paid off for him. I was quite surprised, his pace one lap one was pretty good. I thought his start and that, I thought he would have struggled a lot. It looked like they had that hooked up.”
Ricciardo was bemused with his deficit to Tsunoda over a single lap, citing that even his deleted lap time would have left him a margin adrift of the Japanese driver.
Although Ricciardo was more encouraged with his race pace at the Albert Park Circuit, the ex-Red Bull racer concedes he is still struggling to match his team-mate.
“So I feel like we were [better], the first stint on the Hard, there was a VSC and straight after that, we opened up the graining,” he added. “So I think that stint, we were losing time.
“And then the second stint, once I cleared, I think it was [Esteban] Ocon maybe in an Alpine, I was able to get into the low 21s, and I think at the time that was really competitive.
“And then we kind of got blue flags and whatever after that. I think there were certainly some moments where it does look more encouraging.
“Even then, I still have some comments I think for the team, even when we are going fast, I think there’s some things that I feel like I’m missing.
“But certainly a little bit more encouraging. We’ll keep chipping away.
“Obviously want to reiterate to the team as well is that it’s not a confidence thing, it’s not like a, what the hell is this car going to do when I brake or when I turn. It’s not that.
“I feel a lot of the time I’m not able to carry the speed maybe that I see Yuki able to. See what I can do better. I’m asking plenty of questions to the team as well, so it’s a two-part process.”
Ricciardo insists that he is probing the engineers to get on top of his current difficulties and remains optimistic that he will make a breakthrough sooner rather than later.
Pressed on whether a positive race was the trigger that he needed, Ricciardo responded: “I hope so.
“I’m asking the team a lot of questions, and I think we will have some bits and pieces come onto the car in the next kind of one, two races.
“I expect it to be a pretty quick turnaround, and before you know it, we’ll be doing great again… Nah I kind of say that jokingly, but I do believe it. So yeah, we’ll hopefully turn it around.”
