Daniel Ricciardo knows his STR8 has more potential than it’s showing at times, and he has challenged the team to widen its operating window to the make the most of the pace.
The Australian currently sits 12th in the championship, three places ahead of his team-mate, after finishing seventh in China and tenth in Spain last weekend.
He has mixed feelings, whilst pleased with his pace, he believes the car is only delivering its full potential during a very small window.
“What we’ve learned over the last few races is that there’s a window in which our car is quick – really quick – but that window is very small,” he wrote in his blog.
“In the middle of the race we got into the window but at the beginning and the end we weren’t quite there. The task in front of us is to understand more about what the car likes and doesn’t like. That will allow us at least to get into the window more often – but hopefully make it bigger, with the car working across a wider range of conditions.”
The inconsistency left Ricciardo ultimately disappointed in Spain, where he thought he could have scored more points had it not been for the drop off toward the end of the race.
“The race suggested that we’re nearly there but not quite. In the beginning I thought we were nowhere. I wasn’t happy with the balance of the car in that first stint- in fact I was angry because I knew the car had more potential and we just weren’t using it. Then, the next two stints were really good. The car started working better; I was passing people instead of being passed. At that point I thought we were looking like scoring quite heavily. Then on the last two stints the pace dropped away again and we had to really scramble to hold on to 10th.”
