“Already a couple of steps improvement to last year”: RB 01’s first run in pictures

Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda gave the new RB 01 its first outing at Misano in Italy last week.

Although they finished eighth in last year’s championship, they ended the season in strong shape, often out-scoring their closest competitors. The team brought a series of upgrades to its car, including the adoption of a similar front suspension design to sister team Red Bull.

The RB 01 has moved closer in concept to the car which dominated last year’s world championship and the team is confident it will be in a more competitive position from the beginning of the season.

“We want to be competitive, we want to be fighting hard in the midfield and really able to extract all the performance that the car has available and then we develop it from that point,” said technical director Jody Egginton. “I think if we can tick all of those boxes and get the best out of the car we’ll be happy, and then have a clear direction to develop it.

“There are objectives for the year starting from the first race. Formula 1’s very competitive at the moment. It’s very close. We had a strong finish to the year last year. Our expectation is that we win that fight in the midfield and I know we can get into that fight a little bit earlier, be a bit more consistent and be a feature in all of the races, really battling hard in the fight for points and trying to extract the most from the car and from ourselves.”

Yuki Tsunoda was encouraged by his first run in the car. “I’m feeling great on the track,” he said. “The first run with the car 01 went all smooth.

“Already fell a couple of steps improvement compared to last year and a really big step compared to the same time last year. So that was good.”

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Pictures: RB 01 on-track at Misano

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