Daniel Ricciardo urges calm at RB and addresses possibility of upgrades removal

Daniel Ricciardo has insisted there’s no need for a panic revert of specification on the RB, but a lack of clear answers might trigger a switch.

The RB team had a tough weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix, failing to get anywhere near the points-paying positions despite introducing a large upgrade package for the weekend.

RB introduces comprehensive update package for VCARB01

Chinese Grand Prix aside, the second Red Bull team has scored points in every race since the third round of the championship, the Australian Grand Prix.

Hopes were high, then, for the big upgrade package brought along for the Spanish GP, with changes being made to the engine cover, sidepod inlets and geometry, rear wing, and the floor.

But the updates seemed to have no effect as neither Yuki Tsunoda nor Daniel Ricciardo made it through Q1 and were left mystified with their 17th and 18th place positions – to the point where a satisfied Tsunoda, unaware he’d been knocked out, was left aghast when told his time had not been enough for Q2.

Fortunes didn’t improve in the race, with Ricciardo coming home a subdued 15th and Tsunoda in 19th following a penalty for speeding in the pits.

It’s led to some post-race perplexion for RB, although Ricciardo has said there’s no need for a panic reversion back to the old spec car just yet – but the possibility is there if the team’s analysis doesn’t answer their questions.

“I think that temptation probably only exists in maybe in 72 hours,” Ricciardo told media, including PlanetF1.com, afterward.

“If we’re still unsure or there’s no clear answer then maybe we say: ‘OK, do we just, for the time being, go back?’

“But, right now, I’m not there yet to resort to that. Once we put everything on the table, if we’re still like that, then that probably becomes a question.”

With RB failing to ever get themselves into the fight in Spain, Ricciardo labelled the weekend “strange” as the car had never felt bad in his hands.

“From a competitiveness [aspect], we weren’t there. It was a really, really strange weekend for us to have dropped off so much,” the Australian explained.

“Honestly I felt good in the race. I was happy with what I got out of it, but 15th is not something that we can be happy about.

“But, with the package we had this weekend, I honestly don’t think we could have done anything better.

“So I don’t want to say that makes everything okay, it doesn’t but we need to move on. I’ve got plenty of notes and feedback from the race today to give to the team tonight and, over the next 72 hours, there are lots of things to look at.

“I didn’t have a bad feeling in qualifying. In the debrief, Yuki and I both [felt] we did good laps – we felt like the balance wasn’t bad.

“I think we simply lacked the load and we probably don’t really get everything out of the new package. But, today, in the race, I definitely felt a few more limitations so these are the notes I give back to the team and see what we come back with.”

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Yuki Tsunoda: I felt so weird inside the car

Tsunoda, who has been one of the stars of the season so far as he and the VCARB01 have been a potent earner in the lower points positions, said he felt less comfortable than Ricciardo and said he was certain there was “something wrong”.

“It was a tough race, in which I struggled,” he said afterward.

“The handling of the car was definitely not easy, and I did not feel as comfortable as I normally do.

“We were able to solve it at least in steering, but I’m not sure it was fixed completely because I was feeling so weird inside the car.

“The pace was nowhere, I struggled with the balance, everything. For sure there was something wrong going on there.

“In qualifying the balance was okay, but just too much sliding and I didn’t feel much downforce.”

In light of such a strange weekend, RB technical director Jody Egginton said the first step will be checking for signs of anything unusual.

“We need to have a good look over the car when it’s out of parc ferme,” he said, “and see if we can find anything obvious.”

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