Ricciardo says Red Bull has “a lot more to come”

2017 F1 season

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Daniel Ricciardo isn’t concerned about Red Bull’s faltering start to testing today and says the team has a lot more to come from its car.

Sensor and battery problems confined Ricciardo to the garage for much of the first half of today’s test.

“The afternoon was better,” he said, “we still had a few little issues early in the afternoon but the last two hours was more like a test and I was in the car most of last two hours.”

Testing day one in pictures
“That was good, nice to end the day on a bit of a positive.”

“It would have been nice to do more laps, this morning in particular,” he added. “The main issues were that it was for safety measures.”

“We stopped running because of some sensor things, they were giving us warnings. We are, from the engine side, playing it a bit safe and making sure we don’t do damage on day one. That’s the main thing but the last two hours we got some good running.”

“Hopefully that continues for the rest of the test and Max tomorrow does 200 laps.”

The problems meant Ricciardo hasn’t been able to see what the RB13 can do yet. “I think there’s still a lot more to come from the car,” he said.

“And it’s cold, the track, you feel like it’s cold and the tyres are still probably not in their optimum temperature.”

“But already you see the times, I think Lewis was quicker than the qualifying here last year so sure it’s going to be faster. It’s cool but I think we’re going to get a lot quicker compared to where we are now.”

Ricciardo said his pace was also limited by the conditions, which saw track temperatures peak at just over 30C.

“The soft [tyre] was better than the medium,” he said, “but I think it’s still really, really cold for that tyre.”

“I feel like it wants to give you the grip but it’s not giving what I believe it can. It’s better than the medium but I still feel like the track needs to be warmer for it to be better.”

Red Bull have been tipped to use the opportunity offered by this year’s rules change to rival Mercedes in 2017. However the launch version of their new RB13 is conspicuously lacking in detail.

“I think obviously people expect us to have the most detailed car with lots of little wings everywhere,” Ricciardo admitted. “It looks like some other teams have tried some more adventurous things.”

“We have to see, obviously I have faith in my guys, the team. If we feel that we need to try some other things then obviously that’s what testing’s for. The car looks clean, looks nice, but at the end of the day hopefully it drives fast, that’s important.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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34 comments on “Ricciardo says Red Bull has “a lot more to come””

  1. I think that Red Bull is not as detailed as some of the other competitors is actually making Ricciardo sweat a little. I’m sure Red Bull won’t build a slouch, but this was the season they were confident of taking the fight to Mercedes, so the pre season test is definitely unnerving for the Red Bull team as a whole.

    Hope they have a better day tomorrow. Without Max and Dan fighting at the front, this season is as good as a write off.

    1. @todfod I have a feeling Ferrari will be the major surprise of the season and Vettel will be able to challenge the Mercedes.

      1. @lolzerbob
        Ferrari always posts quick times in pre season testing though. I believe that even in 2014 they set the quickest time in Barcelona. Mercs are classic sandbaggers, and will only reveal their real pace in Q3 in Melbourne. I do think that Ferrari will be competitive this year, but I really doubt they’ll be quicker than the Mercs.

      2. With cars that you can go flat out 99% of the time in, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Raikkonen take the fight to Vettel. His outright pace definitely got better at the end of last season, and he beat him in the quali battle in the end, and it’s no secret that he hated having to save the tyres all the time, he’s a driver who was best when he can push all the time (look at 2005 as an example)

        1. @hugh11 that’s (I am sorry to say) a pretty bad example, 2005’s tyres had to last all race long ;-). 2003 and 2007 though, definitely.

          1. He was still pushing pretty much all the time in 2005 though. But yeah, 2003 and 2007 are great examples too

        2. Kimi beat Seb in qualy due to penalties and reliability issues, like in singapore, for instance where vettel didn´t even qualified.

          They don´t have the same pace, as it was clearly proven by race resultes in Vettel´s favour, despite having a lot more penalties and DNF´s.

    2. I’m still hoping that they have some elaborate aerodynamical loophole thing that they won’t show until the second test, so that no other teams have time to develop it in time for Australia at least, by which time RB will have upgraded other parts.

    3. Without Max and Dan fighting at the front…RBR needs to go look for 2 other drivers next year….I believe

      1. They already have the two best drivers on the grid…..get real…..not going to happen.

      2. Both are great drivers. If you put them both in a Sauber they’d be at the back. If you put them both in a McHonda they’d be in the garage eating sushi. IE if neither is able to perform it’s the car.

        We’ll see if the RBR is anywhere near Mercedes. We’ll know a little bit more tomorrow if they can do 100+ laps like the Mercs.

    4. Maybe simplicity is the key this year, and never bet agianst Newey. Ferrari showed a lot of pormise in 2016 Pre-season but didn’t win a race.

  2. I hope the 13 thing isn’t working against them.

    1. RB and Mercedes have chosen very similar front suspension geometry. It’s normal for RB to have a clean look, aero wise. RB have stuck to small sidepods that taper tightly at the rear, front of the sidepod is probably going to be revised and the final packaging of the rear might change. At the front the RB is running some trickery as there’s a sizeable hole in the nosecone. They tend to get what they need aero wise, the str as usual pursues the aero avenues RB choose not to use on the main car, a bit like Audi/Porsche at LeMans.

  3. Maybe I’m completely wrong on this, but I always thought cars would get more detailed during the season because of all the little things (within regulations) they add or change to the base design they started out with. Doesn’t this mean that although Mercedes looks more detailed (and probably is) right now, they’re already at the limit of what’s possible within the regulations and Red Bull start out with a base, learn the car and tyres and then add/adjust the details to find a couple of tenths on aero alone?

    1. @addvariety the new regulations are very immature, all the teams are expecting a steep development curve. They don’t think they’ve gotten any where near the maximum yet. In fact because of the tyres being an unknown they’ve kept their options open, so expect ebs and flows in competitiveness throughout the season, it just depends on if there are teams that are far out there to begin with as to whether the teams at the front shift back and forth or not

      1. @3dom I see what you’re saying and I agree. So this could mean that Red Bull might catch up to Mercedes a little bit after a couple of races. But that’s not enough if they want to beat them, so let’s hope they’re more evenly matched up than today’s testing showed. One thing’s for sure: Mercedes hasn’t done an actual quali lap and Red Bull hasn’t even tried anything near a fast lap due to their issues.

        1. Exactly @addvariety, no one actually knows for sure if Mercedes are at the front, but bearing in mind, despite what Lauda was saying before the test, they don’t usually bolt out of the door, and they usually put a decent amount of fuel in their car when they’re doing development and setup work, it does suggest that they’ll still be at the sharp end

          1. Dont forget i believe the software usage time and wind tunnel time is still under strict limitations this year. This will hinder development. Can someone co firm this?

  4. Somebody on here commented that the launch car clearly isn’t the final thing we will see in Australia, and that red bull only show their true car at the end of testing.

    This I agreed with, and I’m still expecting them to be second fastest come Australia

    1. Same is true for all the other teams.
      Williams were pretty devoid of any detail at the presentation, but went to track today with not one but two pairs of T-wings on the shark fin.
      Mercedes had no fin, a fin with wings, a fin without wings and a fin with a builtin chimney…
      It is testing time, and they are to bring and run details of any kind or they are wasting time.

    2. The Red Bull is only really the base shell so they can get pretty much base readings to start, then they’ll start adding new wings etc. by next test you’ll start seeing a very different car

      1. This to me makes most sense.. start from a base and work out what works .. try and understand each part.

    3. Part of me still expects them to do a “2010” on everyone @srontium @johns2

  5. Does the 4 engine limit apply to pre-season testing as well? Or does that restriction begin at Melbourne?

    1. American F1, it only applies during the season as the test sessions are not officially part of the race calendar, and therefore are exempted from component lifespan requirements (though they will probably test the cars for a comparable amount of mileage in order to prove that they can do it during the season).

    2. @American F1 It only applies to race week ends thus starting at Melbourne. They wouldn’t try to put such high mileages on the car otherwise. And it is part of the strategy of Mercedes which will split (again) days between their 2 drivers to do a crazy number of laps and check their reliability. We could see this coming when they announced their driver line up for the test.

  6. Suppose it’s slightly encouraging at least that it was all precautionary, not totally disastrous like McLaren, but any missed morning of running can end up costing them the victory in the first few rounds.

    1. I was a bit shocked to be honest, when I found out Red Bull were having issues and it took them all morning. And although it’s easy for them to say they (and Renault) were just being careful, I think especially now it’s actually the truth. New cars, new engines and much upgraded parts around them. Not a new era per se, but the biggest change since we started the V6 Hybrid era.

      1. Remember Red Bull is notoriously very late in starting car build. Always seems to pull the rabbit out of the hat and gets the cars done just in time for first test.

  7. Much as I jumped the gun yesterday too, the idea that this RB will be slow because the first pics and the first, heavily interrupted day of testing showed little detail is kinda premature. Let’s wait and see.

    1. I fully agree… I am sure the car we all saw in the release is just a dummy and the real deal will come later in testing…

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