‘You know when you don’t have it’: Ricciardo realistic after Silverstone stumble
Matt Clayton
Monday, 8 July 2024
Daniel Ricciardo feels RB has gone backwards since its mid-season upgrade introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix, the Australian struggling to 13th at Silverstone on a weekend with only slivers of promise.
Daniel Ricciardo has been around long enough – particularly at Silverstone – to know when he does or doesn’t have something to fight for more with, and Sunday was a prime example of the latter as he finished 13th on another weekend where RB’s mid-season upgrades sent the team backwards.
The Australian was left less than impressed by his run plan in qualifying, which left him in 15th on the grid, but was equally aware that Silverstone’s sweeping curves were unlikely to suit him or teammate Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese driver at least squeaking a point out of a weekend where neither car could make Q3.
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“It’s a long race, 50-something laps; you know when you don’t have it, and we struggled,” Ricciardo admitted after finishing a lap down at the track where he made his F1 debut 13 years ago.
“We struggled more than we should have. I know this wasn’t going to be a real competitive circuit for us but I still felt that, relatively, we struggled more.
“I don’t want to play the ‘poor us’ card in terms of things not going our way. It was a mixed conditions race and that excited us in terms of grabbing some opportunities, but truth is we weren’t competitive in all conditions.
“I felt we lacked speed today. It was definitely tricky. A pretty long race. Every time I saw the weather change I thought ‘maybe this is the moment everything will come alive’, but really it was not a competitive day.”
RB has managed just three points in three races between both drivers since the much-vaunted upgrades to the VCARB 01 were introduced in Barcelona for round 10, with Haas scoring 20 points in that same timeframe to hack RB’s advantage for sixth in the constructors’ standings down to only four points.
While relieved to have time to exhale and debrief after three races in as many weeks, Ricciardo feels the next round in Hungary at a circuit the polar opposite of Silverstone shouldn’t be seen as the antidote to recent ills.
“The last three weekends have been so … compared to some of our competitors in the midfield, we have lost out in the upgrade battle,” he said.
“Budapest is a completely different circuit, so let’s see … but it’s not enough for us to say ‘that track will suit us, so we’ll be OK’. We’ve got to rectify some weaknesses, and I’ll look at my race and work out where I lacked the pace. But there were times where we were missing about eight-tenths [of a second] a lap, and I didn’t really feel like that was there.
“A little bit puzzled through moments of the race, but just one of those days.”
Daniel's British Grand Prix by the numbers
- Qualified: 15th
- Race: 13th
- Fastest lap: 1min 30.735secs (15th), lap 47
- Points this event: 0
- Points this season: 11 (13th in world championship)
