Daniel Ricciardo says Renault’s Austrian Grand Prix performance “doesn’t add up” and hopes the team will be “laughing” once more when it returns to action at Silverstone.
Renault endured a slow start to 2019 amid reliability and performance issues but showed an upturn in performance, including fourth on the grid for Ricciardo in Canada.
Ricciardo followed that up with sixth in race trim while in France he classified seventh prior to a time penalty for two last-lap incidents.
But in Austria Renault struggled for pace, leaving Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg out in Q2, with the duo only 12th and 13th in race trim.
“I really hope we are going to find something because it felt like…for example, Le Castellet was a lot windier but I didn’t feel affected by the wind,” said Ricciardo.
“Whereas [in Austria] it was quite still but the car felt like there was massive turbulence in the terms of the way it was handling in the high speed was very light.
“I feel something still was not quite right on the car. What that is though, we still don’t know, but I’d like to believe that we are going to find something because right now it doesn’t add up.
“So for now I remain optimistic that there will be like [Ricciardo snaps fingers] that was all that was wrong. Then we will be in Silverstone laughing.
“You look at Canada and we were quick, and in Monaco we qualified quite well. So a tough one. The weekend was certainly a bit of an oddball, but don’t really know yet.”
Renault now trails McLaren by 20 points in the battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
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