Daniel Ricciardo has praised the progress RB has been able to make during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend as he qualified in 11th with a “concoction” Formula 1 car.
RB has been using the round at the Red Bull Ring to understand the reasons behind its sizeable update package in Spain contributing to a sudden performance slump.
Ricciardo revealed prior to the on-track action starting that he and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda would be split on car specs with a mix between new and old components.
But while he was eliminated in SQ1 in Sprint Qualifying earlier in the weekend, Ricciardo rebounded to end up 0.010s from progressing through to the top-10 shootout.
Asked whether it was frustrating to miss out on a coveted place in Q3 when the margins were so tight, Ricciardo replied: “Yes, it is.
“Sometimes you can be upset if you lock up and you know you’ve left a tenth or something in a corner.
“The lap was pretty good. I was happy with the lap. Every lap, I was able just to find, you know, half a tenth, half a tenth, a tenth.
“So I feel like we were getting to a point where there wasn’t much left in it.
“Obviously ten milliseconds, that’s always there. But no bad feelings, just that bit of frustration to be so close, but happy with the progress since yesterday.”
Ricciardo believes RB benefitted from the extended running with the Sprint format to better optimise the new parts on the VCARB 01 compared to previous sessions.
“We certainly seem better [compared to last weekend],” he assessed.
“I think yesterday was a lot, we were still trying a lot and then you have one set in Q1, so it was it was always going to be tricky.
“But today, I think having a little bit more of an understanding, having the race this morning, and then we had, I think, five runs in qualifying today.
“We used five Softs, we were able to get the car in a better window. So, still not quite a Q3 car, but we’re there.”
But despite the encouraging signs, Ricciardo was cautious about predicting whether the Faenza-based squad could mount a genuine challenger to land points.
Questioned on whether RB was still splitting between the two specifications, Ricciardo confirmed: “Yes, it’s a concoction.
“From the Sprint race this morning, we did a bit more fine-tuning and I feel like the car was in a better place.
“Obviously, I hope that that means a good thing for tomorrow, but it’s still guesswork, you know, with a full tank of fuel, probably another hot track tomorrow, who knows if we’re going to have Alpine pace or whatever, but hopefully we do.
“Hopefully it’s a two-stop, I think it probably will be with the track conditions, I know some cars save two Mediums, some saved two Hards so that could be quite a determining factor.”
