Category: Formula One

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Bottas takes blistering pole position in Spain

The clouds cleared and the sun came out as qualifying got underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain this afternoon.

Q1 got off to a rather quiet start until Nico Hulkenberg locked up his front-right tyre and ran into the barrier at turn four and over the barrier, losing his front wing. The German managed to rejoin the circuit, but had to limp his Renault back to the pits for repairs before he could set a competitive lap time.

Shortly after, British driver George Russell had a spin on the final chicane at turn 13 before rejoining the track.

At the end of Q1, the pack was led by Valtteri Bottas, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in P2 and Lewis Hamilton in P3. Rookie Lando Norris managed to finish the session in an impressive P6, and home-boy Carlos Sainz managed to finish Q1 in P8.

The five drivers who dropped out of Q1 were Hulkenberg and Stroll – who has dropped out of Q1 for nine consecutive races – followed by Giovanazzi, and both Williams’ of Russell and Kubica. Russell has a five place grid penalty for a new gearbox so will start P20 in tomorrow’s race.

LAT Images

In Q2, both Mercedes drivers set impressive pace at the start, with Hamilton setting a new track record of a 1:16.038. Vettel’s time, by comparison, was six tenths slower.

Ricciardo majorly impressed in Q2, slotting into P10. The Renault hasn’t shown great pace so far this weekend, and despite not having completed any qualifying runs in FP3, Ricciardo managed to set a very competitive time of 1:17.299, a positive outcome for Renault after Hulkenberg’s incident in Q1.

The session ended with Bottas in first with a 1:15.924, followed by teammate Lewis Hamilton and the the two Ferraris in P3 and P4.

Out at the end of Q2 was Lando Norris, Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz at what is his home race, Kimi Raikkonen, and Sergio Perez.

Bottas put in an extraordinary flying lap at the beginning of Q3, setting a blistering time of 1:15.406, six tenths quicker than Hamilton.

Leclerc didn’t set an initial lap-time, seemingly in a bid to set one single flying lap. Despite his best efforts, the Monegasque driver finished the session in P5.

LAT Images

Valtteri Bottas took pole position with his first lap time in Q3, with Hamilton in P2 followed by Vettel, Verstappen and Leclerc. Pierre Gasly, Grosjean, Magnussen, Kvyat and Ricciardo rounded out the top ten. Ricciardo, however, has a three-place grid penalty from the previous race so will start P13 on the grid.

It certainly looks like tomorrow’s race will be an interesting one under the sun in Barcelona. Will it be another Mercedes one-two, or will the Ferraris fight them for victory? Time will tell.

 

[Featured image – LAT Images]

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2019 Spanish Grand Prix Preview

Back we come then, to the place where Ferrari looked on top of the world. Vicariously, we felt an air of excitement that Ferrari, after two years of threatening, may finally have been able to throw the gauntlet down to Mercedes and give us the exquisite title race that 2017 and 2018 had promised, but failed to deliver.

As it has turned out, Mercedes have completely turned the initial outlook on its head, and have made the best team start in the history of Formula One – four one-two finishes to start the year. Where Ferrari had such optimism of the back of winter testing, it doesn’t look as though the Circuit de Cataluña will be any kinder to them than any of the first four tracks have been.

The 16-turn 4.6 kilometre track is full of tight, twisty technical sections that, conversely to the last couple of years, are likely to suit Mercedes over Ferrari, while the Prancing Horses are looking to take advantage of the home straight and the those  between turns nine and ten.

Spain promises to be Red Bull’s first real chance to potentially grab a victory; their car provides the best aerodynamic efficiency of any team on the grid, and following Max Verstappen’s podium in Azerbaijan, this will be a race that one or two associated with the Austrian team will be quietly confident about, especially considering the opportunity for momentum heading to Monaco – another track that will suit the Red Bull car down to the ground.

Away from the front three, this will be the home race for McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who is hoping on an improvement on his start to the season, which has included unreliability with the car, and being outperformed by new kid on the block Lando Norris, who has made an absolutely brilliant start to life in Formula One.

At the back, Norris’ fellow British rookie George Russell’s Williams team are starting to feel the effects of a distinct lack of spare parts, particularly after the wall at the castle section in Baku fancied Robert Kubica’s front wing for lunch, before then claiming Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari for dessert. However, the higher dependability on the driver in Spain than we have seen in the opening rounds might provide an opportunity for one of the two drivers to lift themselves off the bottom of the order – wishful thinking of course, but Williams have never been a team to give up, as history definitively and adamantly tells us.

This is a big weekend then for Ferrari. This weekend will see the first of the season for significant upgrades to cars as we enter the European leg of the season, and failure to win here will be another significant and compounding blow for Ferrari in their ever-incrementing challenge to beat Mercedes.

The champions, on the other, hand, will see this as a golden opportunity to put more breathing space between them and their Italian rivals and win an astonishing sixth consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship.

And of course let’s not forget Valtteri Bottas, with his go-faster beard, looks to extend his championship lead over team mate Lewis Hamilton in what is starting to look like a fascinating battle between the two – he certainly hasn’t been a side-kick so far this year.

The Spanish Grand Prix hasn’t always been the most exciting, and subsequently not the most anticipated race, but this weekend means a lot for our championship protagonists.

 

image courtesy of Pirelli media.

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2019 Azerbaijan GP Review: The Beard Strikes Again

The 1001st GP of Formula One takes place at Azerbaijan, on the very narrow streets between some old and classic buildings with the modern city centre in the background. Baku has become the scene of two classic Formula One races, in 2017 and 2018. Whereas the inaugural race in 2016 was deemed very dull. Would the 2019 race become one of the classic ones, or will it be a sarcastic ‘Well Done Baku’ again?

Even before the start of the race drama took place. FP1 got suspended after 15 minutes due to a loose drain cover which caused major damage to George Russell’s car (and to add to that the tow truck crashed into a bridge), and qualifying almost took two hours (instead of one) thanks to two red flags caused by Robert Kubica and Charles Leclerc.

Three drivers had to start from the pit lane for different reasons. Pierre Gasly has to start from the pits because he missed the weighbridge check at the end of FP2.
Robert Kubica starts from the pits due to his crash in qualifying. The damage, caused when he hit the barriers at turn 8, was big and Williams decided to change the whole set-up of the car at the cost of a pit lane start.
Third driver to start from the pit lane is Kimi Räikkönen. He got disqualified from the qualifying results after the FIA noticed that the front wing was too flexible, which is against the rules.

With all of that cleared up, it’s time for the five red lights to come on, and off again. Hamilton gets off the line quicker than his teammate on pole, but the Finn defended his position and then drove away. Perez jumped Verstappen on the start and takes third place.

It got worse for the Dutchman when Norris almost overtook him on the main straight after just one lap, but after a few laps he got back into the rhythm and closed the gap to Perez. Eventually after a few circuits behind the Mexican, Max uses DRS to overtake the Racing Point car for P4.

Meanwhile Charles Leclerc charges his way through the field and gets fourth place in lap nine, starting from P8. Someone else charging though the field is Gasly – starting from pit lane he gets into P8 after ten laps.

Lap twelve and Vettel goes into the pits from third place for his pitstop to the medium tyre. He gets back on track in P5. His teammate was going much faster on the mediums, almost 2 seconds faster than both Mercedes’ and soon Mercedes followed with a pitstop for Bottas.

One lap later Hamilton comes into the pits for the same strategy: opting the medium tyres. This gave Leclerc the lead. Verstappen goes to the pits in lap fifteen, putting him behind Gasly (who still had to make his pit stop).

The chaos never struck Baku in the first half of the race, and it seemed like strategy would make the difference today. Mercedes versus Ferrari was on again, with Mercedes looking better for the win. Leclerc in the lead on his old medium tyres was losing time to Bottas on his much newer set of mediums.

The first bit of chaos happened when Grosjean missed his braking point and had to take the exit road. He lost three places thanks to that mistake.

In lap thirty-two the second bit of chaos happens. Ricciardo overshoots turn three and Kvyat on his outside can’t turn in. They didn’t hit each other in that incident, but they did when Ricciardo tried to back off onto the track and then struck Kvyat who was just standing there.

Leclerc finally comes into the pits with sixteen laps to go. He goes for the soft tyres and now has to charge through again, as he dropped back behind Gasly in P6. Two laps on his new tyres and he overtakes the Frenchman for fifth place, giving room to close the gap to Verstappen.

Gasly drives an amazing race, his best for Red Bull yet, until in lap 39 his engine stopped. The first Safety Car is a fact, although it is the Virtual SC. Just eleven laps to go and Bottas was leading, ahead of Hamilton and Vettel. In fourth Verstappen was chasing down the German.

For the first time this season Ferrari try to get the fastest lap. Leclerc, on P5, has a gap of 29s to Perez behind and makes a pit stop to push for four laps and get that extra point. The soft tyre didn’t seem to be the best tyre of the day, but thanks to a slipstream by Hulkenberg he managed to clinge the fastest lap and set a new lap record.

Five laps to go and Hamilton gets closer tobhis teammate up front, trying to get DRS to pass his Finnish teammate. Hamilton pushed a Hammer time lap out for the extra point, but more importantly

he now was within DRS range with two laps to go. In the end Bottas won the 2019 Azerbaijan GP ahead of Hamilton. Vettel would join them on the podium, with Verstappen and Leclerc completing the top 5.

After two very iconic races in 2017 and 2018, all drama was happening on the Friday and Saturday at the 2019 edition of this race. So, well done Baku.

Image courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari
 Baku, 27 April 2019 – The Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow SF90s will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the second and fifth rows of the grid, when the race starts
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Red flags cause chaos in qualifying for Azerbaijan GP

The sun was shining over the Baku Street Circuit this afternoon as qualifying for the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix got underway.

Q1 began with two brief yellow flags when Hamilton and Hulkenberg both ran off-track before rejoining the circuit, with Stroll also having a brief scrape with the wall.

A red flag came out just moments after the chequered flag fell on Q1, with Williams’ driver Robert Kubica clipping the wall at turn eight and hitting the barriers. Kubica was okay, but Williams were left with a huge repair job on their hands.

The first session ended with Pierre Gasly in P1, followed by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. The five drivers knocked out of Q1 were Stroll, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Russell and Kubica.

LAT Images

After a delayed start due to the recovery of Kubica’s William’s, Q2 finally got underway, but the red flag was brought out again within minutes when Charles Leclerc crashed into the barriers at turn eight – the exact same place where Kubica crashed in Q1. Leclerc was uninjured but was left understandably frustrated as he made his way back to the Ferrari garage.

After yet another half-hour delay, Q2 finished without further incident. Max Verstappen topped the time sheets followed by Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton in P3. The five drivers out in Q2 and lining up from P11-P15 on the grid for tomorrow’s race are Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon, Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly, who didn’t set a time in Q2 due to his penalty for missing the weigh-in yesterday in practice. He will start tomorrow’s race from the pit-lane.

Q3 was relatively uneventful with nine out of ten drivers out on track in a bid to get pole position. Despite having crashed out in Q2, Leclerc set a competitive time and will start tomorrow’s race in tenth place.

Valtteri Bottas set a sensational lap time of 1:40.495, placing him on pole position for tomorrow’s race. Hamilton completed the front row with Sebastian Vettel behind in P3 next to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. The rest of the grid consists of Perez in P5, Kvyat in P6, Lando Norris in an impressive 7th, with Giovanazzi, Raikkonen and Leclerc rounding out the top ten.

LAT Images

If today’s dramatic qualifying is anything to go by, tomorrow promises to be a very interesting race in Azerbaijan!

[Featured image – LAT Images]

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Well Done Baku? FP1 Drama for Williams

The Azerbaijan GP is famous for its pretty spectacular races (except for the inaugural race of 2016), but this time the drama already started after a few minutes into Free Practice 1.

Charles Leclerc exited turn 2 and came up on the straight, driving partly over a drain cover. This caused the cover to come loose and a little  later it was George Russell who drove over it with his Williams. He parked his car just after turn 3 and looked to the floor of the car, which was damaged quite heavily.

Immediately the red flag was dropped and the tow truck came to pick up the Williams. Track inspections under the lead of Michael Masi (which would normally be the job of the late Charlie Whiting) and it took just a few seconds before they decided to suspend the whole session. A very dramatic decision as there was more than an hour left in the session, meaning teams would lose important track time.

The drama didn’t stop there, however. The tow truck was on its way to the pits to bring back the number 63 Williams car to the Williams box, when it hit a bridge. The tow was too high for the bridge, which caused hydraulic damage to the tow truck. The hydraulic fluid was spreading over the Williams car, whilst the team was waiting for another recovery car to take over the task of the failed tow truck.

The damage caused by the drain cover was so heavy that the whole chassis had to be changed. Russell won’t be able to run until FP3. Sadly, another day for (one side of the garage of) Williams gone.

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Forget Williams – Andrea Moda is F1’s biggest joke team

From the moment Claire Williams confessed there were problems on the horizon for their new challenger, FW42, it was evident to me, and to the F1 community, that things weren’t getting any better for her team. And, lo and behold, those fears were set in stone on Barcelona’s first testing day, when every team but the 9-time Constructors’ champions were ready to go. Once they did arrive, they came to realise they’d made another step back – they were over a second off the next slowest car.

Claire Williams (GBR) Williams Racing Deputy Team Principal.
Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Thursday 25th April 2019. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

So, naturally, this has got the wheels whirring in motion once again, that of the fans and media taking turns pummelling the back markers proverbial pinata with their stinging words, memes and hot takes. ‘The worst team I’ve ever seen’ has even been doing the social media rounds. The three races they’ve competed in have done scant good for fanning the flames, but I’m here to tell a little story that might just put things into perspective – the tale of Andrea Moda, F1’s true joke team.It’s September 1991, and F1 outfit Coloni are going through the wars. A Subaru engine supply scolded the team, and they switched back to customer Ford units for 1991. It did them no good, and the team consisting of just six people and even had Portuguese rookie Pedro Chaves walk out on them. They needed a buy-out to get back on their feet and grow into a respectable F1 outfit – and their prayers appeared to have been answered, when Italian shoe designer Andrea Sassetti threw his finances into the project.

And from the off, the whole saga was a Herculean disaster. The signs, believe it or not, were initially promising – planning to field two drivers instead of the one they were limited to in ‘91, both Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia would be enjoying the fruits of what was intended to be BMW’s labour back in 1990, utilising that car design and coupling it with a Judd V8 powertrain. But when the team arrived in South Africa for the season opener, they had to make do with a modified Coloni chassis from the last year, with their new (old?) design still not ready.

Not that they’d even race it. The FIA weren’t impressed with the team’s refusal to pay a $100,000 sum required of new teams, something Sassetti disputed as Andrea Moda were bought rather than created. They were excluded from racing in Kyalami, and by the time they caved to the FIA’s demands for the next race in Mexico, they were still preparing the new cars and both their drivers were out of the door for publicly airing their annoyance at the lack of preparation going on.

For the third race, surprisingly experienced coup Roberto Moreno and newcomer Perry McCarthy would turn up to Brazil, looking to drive the team forward. Perry wouldn’t get the chance, being denied a Super Licence to race around Interlagos, and the staggering lack of pace the car offered would deny Moreno a path out of pre-qualifying.

Their former fired driver Bertaggia came back to the attention of Sassetti with significant funding, but as the team had already made their two designated driver changes he was prevented from reversing his decision. The sheer ineptitude of Sassetti’s grasp on rulebooks led him to resent McCarthy from then on in, blaming him for failures and blatantly disadvantaging him for the benefit of Moreno.

It took until Monaco for things to get better – and even then, it was only by their and Coloni’s lowly standards and not those of a standard F1 team. Moreno managed to get through pre-qualifying, due to attrition in the session more than anything else, but his skill did keep his qualifying time within the threshold needed and actually pipped Eric Van de Pole to 26th and second last on the grid.

This was celebrated like a victory by the team, which given in its former guises the last time they did this was 1989 was at least slightly understandable. It only took 11 laps for Moreno to retire from the race, but participating at all was at least something to build on.

Build on it they did not. Out of the paddock, Sassetti’s unprofessionalism was laid bare when his Italian nightclub was burned down to the ground by an attempted killer, who then attempted to shoot him dead. Yeah, that really happened. Andrea Moda were taking bullets left right and centre on the track too, if they were ever to go out on it. They withdrew from the next race in Canada due to their Judd engines not being there – the cars were present, yet the unit that makes them go was not. Only Brabham lending an engine allowed Moreno to take part in another fruitless pre-quali. And it still got much, much worse.

French truck drivers protesting prevented the parts needed at Magny Cours arriving, so once again they couldn’t run. Sponsors eventually got to the end of their tether and jumped, Sassetti was having to cut costs more and more, and eventually things spiralled into the dangerous. Only one car’s worth of parts were ready for Britain, but Andrea Moda would swap parts between the machines in a quick rush, hoping both drivers could set their times without farce. Speaking of farce, even that word isn’t strong enough for a team sending their driver, McCarthy in this case, out on wet tyres on a dry circuit.

Before long, the team was rightfully barred from taking part in the World Championship. Constant no-shows, not one clean-ran race, and the constant unprofessionalism and anarchy of Sassetti left the FIA with no choice to bar the outfit, and given Andrea Moda were found to be putting a damaged steering system in McCarthy’s car, it was best they weren’t able to race. The final nail in the coffin for the team? Sassetti’s arrest in Belgium over forging invoices. As bad as Claire and the Williams gang have been over the last eighteen months, they have a long way to go before they match the biggest joke team of F1.

 

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How Ferrari has lost out in cornering speed

Images courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari

Ferrari seemed to be the car to beat after pre-season testing, but 3 races into the season, Mercedes has dominated, taking 1-2 finishes right from the start. How did the Italian outfit lose all the ground it had, and why is it difficult to come back?

2019 started with a really positive vibe for Ferrari. Mattia Binotto, a man who has earned the utmost respect of everyone in the team, was appointed team principal, and Charles Leclerc, a driver who knows Scuderia inside out and has been part of it since 2016, replaced Kimi Raikkonen and brought something unprecedented for the Italians, optimism.

Chinese Grand Prix 2019 – Charles Leclerc

All they had to do was get the results on track, a feat that seemed really difficult for them in 2018. Even though Sebastian Vettel started the season strongly, dominating the early part of the championship, the slump that followed was devastating for him and his team, resulting in another lost title.

It’s fair to say that the SF71H was the better part of the championship, the best car out there. It was fast in the straights, rapid in the corners, managed the tires better than its counterpart, the Mercedes W09, and it proved to be the most reliable car only for Ferrari to spoil it with a misjudged upgrade package after the Singapore GP.

The foundation was there for the 2019 car, though, and that seemed to be the case in this year’s pre-season testing. The SF90 was tremendous, toping the timesheets, with experts (and the teams themselves) arguing that this was the car to beat.

Lewis Hamilton’s remarks may have been the most graphic, and possibly exaggerated:

“I think it’s potentially half a second, something like that. But we will be analysing a lot from this test and there will be some mods that we’ll try and implement before Australia. There’s obviously not a lot of time, but over this next week, hopefully we’ll gain another tenth at least just in our understanding of the car.”

And they gained, not just a tenth, but seemingly 8 tenths of a second against Scuderia, which seemed to have taken a huge blow in Melbourne. Set-up problems, cooling issues, all sorts of things happened to the car that was meant to be the winner at the season opener.

Set-up woes and a key factor that changes everything

Right from the start, Binotto emphasized on the set-up issues his team faced in Australia, saying that this was a one off thing, downplaying the importance of this problem, or even worse not fully acknowledging its full extent.

“You’re always hoping to address and improve the situation through the weekend when you’ve got some issues with balance and the set-up,” he said. “It didn’t happen. We need to bring all the data back home and try to analyse it.

“That has to remain an exception all through the season. But I think it will be a good lesson learned.

“If we may identify where the issue was, we can be back even more stronger.”

This year’s aero kits are a very different kind from those of 2017 or 2018. Simplifying the front wing and the bargeboards, widening the rear wing and its effect on the straight line speed messed with the balance of the Italian car, more than any other on the grid.

Ferrari tried to maintain a more aggressive approach with its front wing design, with the inner part of it being taller than the outer, meaning that towards the endplates, the outwash would still be the same as it was with the 2018 wings – and that is the main issue with the set-up changes.

Simplifying aero parts has an effect on the things a team can ‘tweak’ to get the most out of its car, because the operating window of it is really decreased, and every detail has a bigger impact on the car’s performance.

Mercedes tried to be more conservative with its front end design, and that enables it to make changes to the set-up without compromising its all around performance as much as Ferrari.

The Maranello squad tried to push for the straight line speed not only by making big gains in the ERS deployment (with the MGU-K being at full power for the better part of the lap), but with its aerodynamic components, in order to have as less drag as possible. But, less drag means less downforce around the corners, and I don’t know any track which is composed only by big straights.

Even Baku has a very tricky middle sector, full of mid and low speed corners, and Ferrari addressed that by bringing its first upgrades there, per Binotto:

“We are bringing a few updates to Baku, as the first step in the development of the SF90.”

It is almost certain that Ferrari will bounce back and sort these problems out. It is only a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’. And this cannot come soon enough.

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Race 1001: Another cracker in Baku?

After a decidedly disappointing 1000th race at the Chinese Grand Prix, the F1 bandwagon brings us to the six kilometre-long Baku Street Circuit for the fourth ever race in Azerbaijan.

Last time out saw Lewis Hamilton take the 75th win of his career, and his second of the season. He goes into this weekend at the top of the WDC ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, while Ferrari are yet to deliver on the massive potential that they promised after testing in February.

In fact, they have seen their rivals not only inflict significant damage to their title hopes, but make the best team start to a season since Williams in 1992 with three one-two finishes to start the season.

2019 Bahrain Grand Prix, Sunday – Wolfgang Wilhelm

If there is to be any hope for Ferrari getting back to winning ways for the first time in 2019, it is that they looked impressive in Baku last year. Sebastian Vettel had been on for victory had it not been for a safety car late on that allowed Bottas to pit and rejoin ahead of him.

A penultimate lap puncture for Bottas then handed the win to Hamilton in a race that didn’t quite equal 2017, but certainly gave us a lot of excitement and entertainment, while Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were given a lot of resentment by their Red Bull team after their crash.

Speaking of the Austrian team, the tight and twisty corners of a street circuit plus a Honda engine which is giving them significantly more power than Renault did could put them into contention for a podium or perhaps even more if things do their way.

However, this weekend will be a telling one for Pierre Gasly. Having been heavily out-qualified and out-raced thus far by team mate Verstappen this season, a circuit like Baku is an opportunity for him to prove that he deserves the seat awarded to him by Red Bull. Knowing Red Bull’s tendency to be impatient with young drivers, he’d better find some pace quickly.

Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

Their sister team Toro Rosso continue to enjoy a solid start to 2019, and Alex Albon is Red Bull’s next optimistic topic of conversation. He finished 10th in China, having started the race from the pit-lane following a crash in FP3 that put him out of qualifying.

The battle between Toro Rosso, Racing Point, Haas, and Renault continues to be a fun one to watch, as Haas still look for answers to their baffling lack of race pace, and Renault try to have their first clean weekend of the season after a reliability issue-strewn start to the year. There is extra incentive for Nico Hulkenberg, as he looks to prove that Baku is not a bogey track for him, having crashed out of both of the last two races.

As a street track looms, opportunity beckons for some to prove their worth to their teams, and for Ferrari to finally try and throw down the gauntlet to Mercedes in 2019.

 

[Featured image – Wolfgang Wilhelm]

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Ricciardo confident Renault “heading in the right direction” despite early problems

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo says he is confident the team are “heading in the right direction”, despite the problems he has suffered in the first few races of the 2019 season.

Ricciardo has suffered two DNFs in two races, retiring from his home Grand Prix in Australia as a result of damage sustained when his front wing was broken at the start of the race, and then grinding to a halt on lap 53 of the Bahrain Grand Prix due to a loss of power.

Despite this, Ricciardo still believes that there are signs of promise and was buoyed by a positive showing in the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test.

Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) Renault F1 Team RS19.
Bahrain Grand Prix, Saturday 30th March 2019. Sakhir, Bahrain.

“I’m certainly getting there in terms of extracting the maximum [from the car] and getting more comfortable,” he said. “These things do take time, but it’s good to iron out these details going forward. We’ll get there soon and sure enough and I’m confident we’re heading in the right direction.”

Renault have identified a certain pattern in their performance over the course of the weekend, and Ricciardo says it’s just a matter of the team finding their feet and delivering on the potential of the car.

“We showed signs [of pace] over the race weekend, going from a struggle on Friday, followed by an improvement on Saturday to being in and amongst it on Sunday.

“The car clearly has pace, but for me, it’s about finding all of it. I feel there’s a lot more to come.”

(L to R): Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) Renault F1 Team with Cyril Abiteboul (FRA) Renault Sport F1 Managing Director.
Bahrain Grand Prix, Friday 29th March 2019. Sakhir, Bahrain.

Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul shared a similar sentiment. “The start of the 2019 season has fallen short of our high expectations,” he said. “Our overall competitiveness is good enough for our drivers to be racing in the top ten and closer to the top teams than last year, but we have suffered from reliability issues.

“We move onto China with caution, but also with a resolution to really get the season going.”

 

[Featured image – Renault F1 Team]

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