Ricciardo left uninspired by VCARB updates: ‘I’ll give it a session though’
F1 News
Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda are trying their best to keep VCARB in sixth place in the Constructors Championship. However, the duo hasn’t been inspired by the team's latest updates. They currently lead the battle for sixth by six points, but Haas are applying pressure.
During the Italian Grand Prix weekend, Tsunoda received a new floor. The Japanese driver failed to escape from Q1, and his woes in Monza continued. He wasn’t particularly pleased with the new parts he received though admits he had little experiance.
"I think the team wanted to read how my new floor behaves. But in qualifying, clearly, something was struggling,” Tsunoda told GPblog and others in Italy. Tsunoda didn’t get the chance to test them properly in the race. He had to retire on lap seven. In 2021 and 2023, he didn’t even complete a lap at the same venue.
“We were at least hoping, maybe in the race, our new floor would give some benefits. But now I couldn't see any data. We saw in the data the things that are unexpectedly worse than we thought. But it ends up probably affecting a couple of things. We have to compare which [floor] is helping more and which [floor] is losing more. But I didn't feel clear benefits from that floor,” Tsunoda concluded.
Ricciardo lacks confidence
As a result, Ricciardo is not confident about the upgraded floor that he will, likely, get at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend. Ricciardo explained that VCARB still plan to use the upgrades despite the negative feedback from the Japanese driver.
“Sometimes you can't predict what happens on track. It might produce more load, but maybe it shifts the balance, so maybe setting the car up is trickier. And maybe that's what it was,” Ricciardo told GPblog and others.
"It's hard for me to speak on. Look, I want to believe that it can still be good because obviously the last one wasn't too good for us. I'd like to think this one is better. But obviously Yuki has the only experience with that this weekend. And obviously he was a bit vocal about having a tough weekend. So we'll see. But it's something I want to at least give it a session and have a feel for it before I also maybe say it's not the one,” Ricciardo concluded.
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