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Daniel Ricciardo believes RB tend to get overtaken easily during a race and find it harder to pass other cars. Starting ninth on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo slipped down to tenth at the start of the race.
After the pitstop, he drove another 50 laps trailing Nico Hulkenberg, who was behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Running 12th for the majority of the race, the 34-year-old lost a place to Kevin Magnussen towards the end. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda after the Imola GP, the Australian felt that their rivals alternative strategy lost him positions.
Explaining the lost place, he reckoned that the Haas was on an alternate strategy to aid them further in the race. However, he lamented that passing Logan Sargeant earlier in the race was also equally hard on a circuit like Imola.
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Similar to Daniel Ricciardo, Tsunoda, who started seventh, also lost two places at the start at the beginning of the race and dropped to tenth. Both RB drivers opted for a one-stop strategy which meant they drove the final 50 laps of the race on hard tires, making them vulnerable to drivers on a better tire strategy.
He felt that starts remained a weakness of the team and needed to be worked on. However, he felt following other cars in dirty air is their bigger weakness making it difficult at circuits where there is limited to room for overtaking.
Asked about losing 12th place to Magnussen on the final lap, Daniel Ricciardo explained:
“I think they just had alternate strategy and it's another place where he was already ahead of me breaking into turn one so. When I was behind Sargeant in the middle of the race, obviously we were a lot quicker. But I was never even alongside him braking into turn one. So, yeah, following, I feel, maybe Kevin had a bigger tyre delta, I don't know. But following, we feel like people are able to overtake us a little easier than we're maybe able to overtake them. So, some things we're still trying to work on with obviously the car and the balance. But, I say the start, probably strategy as well today. Maybe we could have done something different, but yeah, probably easy to say now. It's something we go and look at.”
Probed further about the starting performance of the RB being a weakness, Daniel Ricciardo explained:
“It's probably just an inconsistency, like obviously the Miami, when I was in fourth, when you really need a good start, fortunately I did, I had a good start off fourth and obviously gained the position. We don't want these starts today where we lose two positions. I don't need to be getting the best start out of everyone, but just at least try and the whole position. It's something we're putting a lot of effort into, but obviously today it still bit us and I think Yuki also lost a place, so as a team, it wasn't great.”
Daniel Ricciardo lamented the balance and starting performance of the car
Daniel Ricciardo believes that RB’s starting performance is hurting their ability to score points on days when it counts. He also felt that he wasn’t comfortable with the balance of the car from the beginning of the weekend. The Australian driver was consistently two-tenths of a second behind Tsunoda at the Imola circuit, which is their team’s home track. Having turned around his performance on paper in China and Miami, the Perth-born driver was unable to deliver to his best abilities in Imola.
Explaining his race and its outcome, Daniel Ricciardo said:
“It wasn't as good. I still think the laps we have in clear air we show some pace you know. I feel like in clear air we probably have a tenth, maybe two on Hulkenberg. So I think it looks very different if we get a better start. Saying that, I still didn't feel particularly happy with the set of hard tires. As soon as I left the box I didn't really feel like I had a great peak on the tire. I didn't feel balance was great. But nonetheless, I still felt like we had an ability to lap decent compared to our rivals, but the starts are hurting us at the moment.”
Contemplating the issues on the RB, Daniel Ricciardo said:
“Honestly I don't know yet what the issue was. I didn't feel like I botched it. I felt like everything was going okay from a procedure but we have to have a look and it's so sensitive and it's something we're working on. But today obviously it costs us. Yeah I didn't feel balance was great but nonetheless, I still felt like we had an ability to lap decent compared to our rivals but yeah the starts are they're hurting us at the moment. I think we stay in front of Hulkenberg at the start. If Yuki and I say go off together then it's a completely different looking race. So that's the first place we've got to look up.”
After seven rounds into the season, Daniel Ricciardo has scored five points for the RB team. However, the Faenza squad have managed to secure their spot at the top of the midfield comfortably. The former Red Bull Racing driver is racing against time to get a good result to salvage his career for 2025 and beyond. With most of the driver market moving quickly, it will be critically important for him to deliver a good performance in the upcoming races. Red Bull Racing are currently evaluating their options for 2025 and are due to announce their decision in the upcoming weeks.
