Daniel Ricciardo admitted he didn’t extract his car’s maximum potential at the Belgian Grand Prix, after finishing 16th while his team mate scored a point.
The eight-times grand prix winner, in his second race since returning to F1, rose three places to finish 16th on Sunday. Tsunoda lined up 11th and took the final point, the team’s first since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April.Ricciardo made an early pit stop on lap five after failing to make any on-track overtakes despite starting on soft tyres. Tsunoda, who began the race on the medium compound, climbed up to sixth in his first stint which put him on course for a points finish.
AlphaTauri pitted Ricciardo again from 12th on lap 22, which allowed him to briefly run free of traffic, and he gained two positions in his final stint.
Ricciardo, who finished ahead of Tsunoda in their first race as team mates a week earlier in Hungary, said he said he couldn’t reach the car’s potential regardless of whether or not he was in traffic.
“I feel like we didn’t get the most out of the car,” Ricciardo said. “I felt quite limited in terms of pace.
“Even in clear air I was struggling a lot. I was probably not producing enough grip and then I was sliding and overheating really quickly.
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“So I think in clear air we didn’t break away from the pack, we couldn’t, and felt like they were able to get more out of their tyres, so then I was getting overtaken.”
Sunday’s grand prix was the only dry running of the weekend, after rain affected both qualifying sessions and Saturday’s sprint race, where Ricciardo finished 10th. He said he was therefore not too concerned by his result in the grand prix.
“I’m keen to get back and see what we can learn from it,” he added. “I don’t want to be too discouraged.
“It was our only dry session all weekend, so it could be something simple with set-up. We went the wrong way and that’s that. I just wish I could have been able to attack a little more.”
Ricciardo joined the team which is last in the constructors’ championship less than two weeks ago, and he says he “shouldn’t be expecting the world at the moment” from his performance.
“Nine days ago I hadn’t driven this car so when I put everything into perspective, I think we’re okay. From what I understand the few laps we got towards the end in clear air we actually were on a decent pace.
“So it’s probably not all that bad. Now that I’m back in this sport, I’ve got a taste, I want to make sure that I’m kicking arse.”
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2023 Belgian Grand Prix
- Haas drivers fear losing battle for seventh after “grim weekend” in Spa
- Mercedes optimistic they’re “in the right place for winter” with development plan
- Ferrari not convinced by call to equalise engines: ‘Renault is not so far away’
- Ferrari staying “calm” amid swings in performance from race to race
- Pirelli proposes new “super-intermediate” to address wet weather tyre problems
Coventry Climax
31st July 2023, 10:40
‘Success’ in the previous round, too big a mouth as a result, now back to reality. How surprising.
Just like it was too early to draw conclusions last time out, it is too early to draw conclusions this time.
Fact however is, that in the same car, Tsunoda outperformed him, which is something we seemingly all agreed on shouldn’t happen.
We’ll see how it goes.
PacificPR (@streydt)
31st July 2023, 11:48
Yuki in Spa was back on his form that he had at the start of the season and I feel he hasn’t really been given credit for it. So indeed way to early to draw conclusions. Curious to see how the rest of the season will go.
faulty (@faulty)
31st July 2023, 18:45
I just think Yuki was in on it.
It was not so much a RIC low as it was a TSU high.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
31st July 2023, 20:42
I think it’s fairly clear where your agenda lies if you start a comment criticising a person’s character rather than the merits of their talent. That aside, I think the situation could do with a semblance of analysis.
Firstly, Ricciardo was within 2 tenths of Tsunoda and comfortably through into Q2 when his lap time was deleted for track limits. Clearly, that is his fault but on pace on Friday they were evenly matched. That is an achievement given the guy has had 3 days in the car prior to this weekend, in variable conditions at one of the toughest circuits on the calendar. On Saturday, Ricciardo qualified ahead (11th to 16th) and finished ahead (10th to last) in the sprint sessions ahead of a Williams and an Aston. On Sunday, the advantage was clearly with Yuki.
For the GP itself, let’s look at Ricciardo’s performance – stuck behind a Haas most of the race, unable to overtake down the straight even on softs. Yuki on the other hand was able to fight comfortably with multiple teams. If we expand this context further, Aston Martin were horrific on Saturday, quick on the Sunday and McLaren the opposite.
Surely, the most sensible conclusion from this is that Ricciardo put on a higher downforce set up which favoured him in the variable conditions on Saturday a la McLaren and Yuki did the opposite? Given the weather was volatile, the team may have decided to split the dry/wet set-up strategy (which looks a good decision) or Daniel favoured more downforce as he has only driven the car in high downforce at the Hungaroring and would be more familiar with the car’s characteristics.
Context is absolutely vital when assessing driver’s ability. It is much too simplistic to say “Tsunoda good, Ricciardo bad” based on the GP result. I agree it is too early to form a judgement, but it’s not too early to perform an analysis.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:04
Indeed, so quali was better than it looked for the deleted lap, sprint was good, race was bad and indeed could have to do with the setup.
All in all, this race weekend doesn’t tell me one driver is better than the other atm, and ricciardo was actually really close to scoring points in the sprint, at the end of the day he ended 10th, it’s just the different points system preventing him from doing so.
Coventry Climax
31st July 2023, 23:19
I have no agenda.
I don’t care who comes out on top, but I don’t like bragging and downplaying.
There’s a reason they delete laptimes when the tracklimits aren’t respected: When leaving the track, the laptime is likely too fast compared to a lap within limits. So to say the pace was similar to someone that did stay within the limits, is a mistake.
There may be all sorts of reasons for one driver being quick this race, and the other that race. Tsunoda wasn’t all that happy last time, remember? Don’t see you mention that.
Context is fine, but not if it’s used to favor one driver only, and not only the context that suits you. What was that about agenda again?
Two races and drawing conclusions? Sure.
I’ll say it again: We’ll see how it goes.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
1st August 2023, 7:47
Come on CC – you’re better than that. You know DR had comparable pace across practice and q1, it’s not like he was a second off the pace and came close due to an invalid lap. You’re being deliberately flippant.
The reason I’ve not mentioned Tsunoda is that you didn’t directly criticise him. But the context is that Ricciardo found out he was racing for a team Yuki had been at for 2 and a half years and had 10 full weekends in the car. Ricciardo last raced for AT in 2013 and hadn’t driven the car ever. The context was omitted as it looks harsher in black and white than in reality. Yuki should have convincingly beaten Daniel in Hungary.
Your closing remark is fatuous, clearly we’ll wait and see, what’s the alternative? But making derogatory comments about drivers without so much as a quote, and totally bereft of context suggests an agenda to me.
Coventry Climax
1st August 2023, 11:48
So what exactly were the derogatory comments I made?
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
1st August 2023, 14:29
Putting success in inverted commas and saying someone has a big mouth is disrespectful.
Coventry Climax
1st August 2023, 18:02
That’s because I don’t think the results in his first race back were really all that great, and I felt he hyped the results too much to my liking. That set expectations, which isn’t a smart thing to do.
And indeed, the next race was less successful, and he had to downplay that.
Don’t really see how that is disrespectful, especially as I also said two races is too early to judge him, and let’s see what happens, meaning to only then judge him after a couple of races. Sounds pretty fair to me, actually.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
2nd August 2023, 17:36
“sounds fair to me” is you agreeing with your own point.
If someone had called a family member a big mouth, put success in inverted commas and also completely disregarded all highlights I’m fairly sure you’d consider it disrespectful.
As I requested in a previous post, have you got the 2 contrasting quotes to hand?
Jere (@jerejj)
31st July 2023, 12:52
While he got out-performed on merit in qualifying & the race, at least he did better in Saturday sessions.
Coventry Climax
31st July 2023, 14:32
Sprint thingies don’t count. That’s for kiddies under 5 and -generally- the attention span to go with it.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:04
That’s not fair to people who had a good sprint, like piastri, a really impressive performance.
Coventry Climax
31st July 2023, 23:30
Who says I have to be fair? Even when my comments are really, really fair, there’s always people who think they aren’t. Duh.
I’m not judging the performance of the people that happened to have a good sprint thingie, it’s just that it’s pointless and doesn’t really count.
I can run the mile in 8 seconds, but if there’s no official to record it, it’s pointless.
Anyway, my comment was to be taken with a pinch of salt. This one too maybe.
But I would still seriously like these fake sprint thingies to be scrapped – for good.
GeeMac (@geemac)
31st July 2023, 13:41
As I said in the “Was Red Bull right to axe De Vries for Ricciardo” debate article that came out a few days ago, one race is not an accurate sample set to judge Ricciardo’s return by. We need to assess him properly at the end of the season.
I’m rooting for Danny Ric, but the guy needs time to (a) settle back into grand prix racing and (b) settle back into the Alpha Tauri team. There are going to be ups and downs so I hope the modern trend of building people up one minute and cutting them down the next doesn’t continue week by week for the rest of the season.
Coventry Climax
31st July 2023, 14:36
Following Red Bull logic, we got to assess him after 8 races or maybe 4, accounting for his much greater experience.
Most striking for me is his hyping of the first result, and the downplaying of the second. Just shut up and show me what you’re worth, Ric!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:14
It was still a decent weekend by ricciardo, not worthy of all that criticism: quali looked bad cause of ONE lap time deleted, not 3 like a certain perez in q2 in austria, sprint result would’ve given him 1 point in the race, too bad he had it in the race where points require you to be 2 positions further up (and it’s not easier to score points in a sprint than a race in a bad car) and race was bad, it looks like you really need to qualify well with this car to have a decent race.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
31st July 2023, 15:00
If they expected Nyck to be at least on par with Yuki if not ahead then I would argue more is expected of Ricciardo. He has till the end of the season to prove himself, but he needs to be consistently ahead of Yuki to even think of retaining that seat another year never mind dreams of dropping into the main team early.
I like Ricciardo but I really want to see Lawson get his chance from next year, he’s already been overlooked twice now in favor of experience yet it’s Yuki that’s scoring the points.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
31st July 2023, 20:36
+ 1 @geemac.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
31st July 2023, 20:35
I knew the ‘Ricciardo is awful’ gang would be chomping at the bit for this first sign of an error or failing. He’s been with the team 10 days and as has taken part in 3 races, on top of each other. He got points in one of them. I don’t think he over-hyped his first result either based on what he said. He did a reasonable job and it was all the journalists and commentators who made so much of it.
It’s quite pathetic to see them really but I suppose we should expect it these days.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:06
I agree it’s too soon to criticise him, but he didn’t get any point yet, that I know of!
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
1st August 2023, 0:18
No. Sorry was a mistake on my part. I didn’t see the sprint race and was thinking 10th place gave Daniel a point. It doesn’t of course as it’s only the first 8 places that get points.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:07
18 Kevin Magnussen DEN HAAS FERRARI 2
19 Logan Sargeant USA WILLIAMS MERCEDES 0
20 Nyck De Vries NED ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 0
21 Daniel Ricciardo AUS ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 0
Jason (@jasonj)
31st July 2023, 21:53
He’s not going to improve his career up the grid unless he scores more, finishes ahead and is a safer pair of hands than Tsunoda. Red Bull don’t think Tsunoda is remotely talented, so any team mate being outperformed by him is mediocre and destined for Formula E. Unless Ricciardo is 5 places ahead for the remaining races they let him drive this year, we’ll see a junior talent get a shot next year.
I think Ric’s best days were years ago, he only has ‘fan appeal’ now, but being outperformed by Yuki is going to lose fans fast.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
31st July 2023, 22:10
Yes, the sure thing is: matching tsunoda will not give him a red bull seat, if perez is so terrible he must be replaced they will need to find a better driver than tsunoda\that version of ricciardo, so they would fish outside their own teams.
Beating tsunoda might or might not give him a red bull seat, depending on what perez does; losing to tsunoda should see him out of f1 and matching tsunoda, depending on circumstances, could let him stay at alpha tauri or not, it depends on how they rate lawson and their other current juniors, I haven’t heard about other standout names, so probably not impressive.
Frans (@frans)
1st August 2023, 8:31
Honestly judging driver performance using this race is not straightforward. The thing is that they had very little and somewhat meaningless practice session thus some might not be anywhere close to their ideal setup.
Overall I wouldn’t really judge Ric vs Tsu only from these 2 races. On previous race Ric got punted and Tsu got a bad stop and bad strategy. On this race while Tsu did better for the main race, Ric did better on the sprint.