Ricciardo paying more attention to midfield rivals at Renault

2019 F1 season

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Daniel Ricciardo says he’s paying closer attention to the midfield competition at Renault than he did in his Red Bull days.

Renault ended the first test on top of the times but Ricciardo said he isn’t taking the team’s position for granted.

“I kind of feel like everyone has a pretty decent car at the moment,” he said at the Circuit de Catalunya today. “To be in the [one minute] 17s, even the 18s, you’re kind of humming. Turn three will be flat, turn nine’s probably flat. So the cars really aren’t doing that much wrong.”

“I can’t remember what last year’s testing was like but I feel everyone’s got the ability to be quite quick this week,” he added. “Toro Rosso, even if that’s with low fuel, it’s still a one minute 17, that still seems pretty quick.”

Despite having left 2018 race-winners Red Bull for Renault, who were in the thick of the midfield fight last year, Ricciardo said he is still keeping an eye on the pace of F1’s ‘big three’ teams.

“At Red Bull you looked at two [other] teams and that was pretty much it,” he said. “I guess there’s a few more cars around us this year.

“I’m still very curious obviously to know what Ferrari, Merc and those guys are doing. But it’s still tricky, if I had to put money on it I guess Ferrari have been the most consistent all test but even after next week we’re not going to know until Melbourne, are we?”

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2019 F1 season

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7 comments on “Ricciardo paying more attention to midfield rivals at Renault”

  1. Even in Melbourne we won’t know for sure. It usually has the odd results that tell only half the picture.

    1. After Abu Dhabi we will know for sure.

    2. Mercedes was fastest in melbourne last year, ferrari and red bull pretty even, then haas, mclaren, renault, that’s a pretty good picture, aside from development improvement from renault and worsening from mclaren, and while in qualifying mercedes was dominant that track, I immediately saw that hamilton was pulling away very slowly from raikkonen, like ferrari had a competitive car, which then happened across the year more or less.

  2. Really? If a street race had to be added and specifically on a man-made island then why not, for example, Odaiba in Tokyo instead? A quite iconic artificial island in the capital of the country.

    1. I don’t know how this got here. I was on the right article, didn’t switch here, and yet still for some reason, my post went onto this one.

  3. The party’s only going to start when Lewis activates party mode. Perhaps Liberty made a deal with Merc to not look too fast in testing?…hahaha

    Call me a cynic, it would be a surprise if Lewis does not win this year. Yes Ferrari may have a faster car, so what? Plus, I think Leclerc will take points off Vettel, if he doesn’t already do that by himself. I dont want Merc to win, but they will.

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