Ricciardo frustrated after covering just nine laps, but encouraged by pace

Daniel Ricciardo admits it was frustrating for him to miss out on any meaningful running during the opening day of practice at Suzuka.

The RB driver completed nine laps in the rain-affected second practice session on Friday, only one of which was on slicks.

Ricciardo missed the opening hour of practice as Ayumu Iwasa drove his car. This allowed the team to complete one of its two required opportunities for junior drivers.

Speaking after second practice, Ricciardo admitted it was frustrating not to have any representative laps under his belt after Friday.

“Yeah, it was in the end,” he said. “FP1, it is what it is. We have to give up our seat for one session in the year. Ayumu had his home track, so obviously made sense to give him a run, so that’s fine. Obviously that it is what it is.

“When you miss FP1, you obviously want to get some running in FP2 and that weather was just that ‘in the middle’ where it’s not really wet enough for proper intermediate running, and then it’s not really dry enough to learn much on the dry running.”

Ricciardo likened sitting out of first practice to his experience on the sidelines as Red Bull’s reserve driver over the first half of 2023.

“It was a lot like early last year when I was spending the race weekends on the Red Bull pit wall,” he explained.

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“You actually see quite a bit. We’re looking through a lot of data and you watch onboards and we hear the comments from the drivers and I’m trying to then understand what exactly they need, where. Then I can kind of see it in the data and relate to that.

“So I just put myself in that position: ‘okay, now what would we do?’. We have one new set of tyres and we’re saying we need ‘this’ – so what do we do, how much do we change and blah, blah, blah. So you have a little bit of the luxury of time on the pit wall, so to speak, a bit less pressure”

After team mate Yuki Tsunoda was ninth-fastest in the dry first practice session, Ricciardo is feeling optimistic about his team’s prospects in Suzuka a this early stage of the weekend.

“I think in the morning, Yuki looked like he was up to speed well and was in the top ten, I think, really all session,” Ricciardo said.

“The McLarens, I think, were on like a scrubbed soft by that point, so I think they’ll be ahead. [Fernando] Alonso was quick, [Lance] Stroll didn’t look so – but I’m sure he will be once everything’s up there tomorrow. So we probably look like we’re on the front of the midfield battle that we’re in, which is kind of that P11 spot.

“Obviously you never know what happens in quali, but it looked like where we kind of expect to be. So on that note, it’s more positive than not.”

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