Daniel Ricciardo admitted after today’s qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix that the Red Bull team does not have a grasp of its current problems and that recent updates to the car have not worked.
“It’s just frustrating with the circumstances and situation,” he said of his qualifying, in which he finished ninth fastest.
“We just can’t seem to get a sweet spot…We just can’t seem to get much right or get on top of it.
“We’re struggling to understand a lot of what we need. We’re bringing updates and back home the team’s pushing, and I think the last few races we’ve had updates but to be honest they haven’t really done anything for us. So I don’t think we all know what we need and where to find it.
“We’re trying but we’re not getting much in return…We probably have to take a step back and look somewhere else or try and see if there’s something fundamental we’re missing.
“It’s not through lack of trying, we even tried something pretty big yesterday morning on my car, but just nothing seems to be working.”
Ricciardo accepted also that the team’s struggle is not merely about the lack of Renault horsepower: “Obviously on the power side we know where that is but I think chassis side as well there’s something there which we can’t grab onto which we had last year.”
The Australian added though that “the faster you go down the straight the more [tyre] temperature and stuff you generate, and I guess if you had a Merc in the back you’d be going quicker on the straights and maybe the tyre warm up would be better.”
His team mate Daniil Kvyat, who starts one place ahead of Ricciardo tomorrow in P8, was also downbeat: “Today we achieved everything we could from the package that we have in our hands at the moment, but I think P8 and P9 are not the positions we want to be fighting for in the future.
“It’s a good indication of how much work we have to do…it’s not a short term thing.”
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