Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, Monaco, 2021

Ricciardo puzzled by time loss in sector two

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In the round-up: Two-times Monaco Grand Prix pole-winner Daniel Ricciardo found it hard to understand where he was losing so much time to team mate Lando Norris following the first day of practice.

In brief

Ricciardo surprised by lack of pace

Ricciardo, who won the Monaco Grand Prix in 2018, says he is beginning to feel confident at the wheel of his McLaren but the lap time wasn’t there on Thursday.

“I felt like I had confidence,” he said. “It was just not translating into lap time. From behind the wheel it was quite frustrating because I cross the line, I’ll be like ‘it’s probably a decent lap’ and it was like P12 or P15 or even at one stage P17. So it’s frustrating because it’s a long way off actually. There’s a lot of time to find.”

He said he has most to gain in the middle sector of the lap, which runs from Mirabeau to the Swimming Poor. “The second sector was my weakest one and that’s kind of turn five, six all the low-speed, really,” he said. “So it’s a bit surprising why I’m kind of losing so much there.”

Honda flex their muscles on ‘Fast Friday’

Scott Dixon, Ganassi, IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 2021
Dixon led a Honda charge on Friday at Indianapolis
Scott Dixon was quickest at the end of ‘Fast Friday’ practice for the Indianapolis 500, lapping the oval at an average speed of 375.463kph (233.302mph). Ganassi team mate Marcus Ericsson produced the quickest four-lap average ahead of the start of qualifying today, completing his run at an average of 373.287kph (231.950mph).

Honda served noticed of their potential as all bar one of the drivers in the top 10 were powered by the Japanese engines. McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward, who set the sixth-quickest individual lap, was the only Chevrolet user in the top 10.

There isn’t room on the 33-car grid for all of the 35 entries. The two slowest drivers on Friday were Foyt’s Charlie Kimball and Top Gun’s RC Enerson. The nine slowest drivers all had Chevrolet power.

Gasly sets top-eight target

Having expected AlphaTauri to struggle around Monaco’s many slow corners, Pierre Gasly believes they have a realistic chance of qualifying inside the top 10 today.

“If we make it to Q3, it will be great,” he said. “I hope we can make it to Q3 and qualify near the top five but I would say if we can be top eight, that would be very good for us.”

Drivers attend Monaco fashion show

George Russell, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nicholas Latifi, Jack Aitken, Norman Nato, Nick Cassidy, Mitch Evans, Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne, Monaco, 2021

Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula E drivers took part in the Amber Lounge Fashion Show in Monaco yesterday.

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Comment of the day

Yesterday’s F2 race seemed more like a qualifying session at times:

Weird, weird race. Most of the drivers seemed content to sit back and go for fastest lap rather than try overtaking.

The point for fastest lap needs to be removed for Monaco. Ticktum at one point did a 1’22.1 followed by a 1’27.6 and a 1’22.3 after that. Crazy stuff.
@Wsrgo

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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20 comments on “Ricciardo puzzled by time loss in sector two”

  1. Happy Birthday Cristian ;)

  2. For the most part 2021 feels just like 2020.5 but there is something amiss, something puzzling, could it be the new tyre? Ricciardo looked on like the old Ricciardo, the car had a strong front end a slidy rear but controlla

    1. ble rear, looked just like Riccardo in previous monaco gps but the laptime was horrendous. I reckon the new tyre is behind the little changes we can see from last season.

  3. Methinks Dan is still not 100% comfortable with the brakes, which is more important to him [late braking].
    Total empathy for Dan, as I changed pads & s/steel brake lines on our family wagon – 1000% improvement in stopping and smooth progression.

  4. RP (@slotopen)
    22nd May 2021, 2:44

    I saw F1 fashion show scanned for Hamilton.
    I’m so disappointed. That group needs a pink or camo entry.

    Also glad I’m old enough to not care about trendy tight pants. Awful. I’m a person, not a heron.

    1. All the fits in that fashion show photo are horrible

      1. @paeschli, @slotopen I’d say GIO did it best (possibly by having dark blue), he looks casual, the others, well. First I saw of this was good, on twitter though:

        1. The guy in the dark blue is Latifi though, isn’t it @bosyber. I think Nato looks quite fine there too. And Giovanazzi in the light blue looks like he fits right in as well.

          1. Dark blue pants @bascb, isn’t Gio the one with the lightblue jacket? Anyway :)

          2. Ah, the pants, right.

  5. Watching the McLaren on TV, that pale blue looks sickly – to-o-o light a colour.
    Compare that to the F2 in Gulf Oil livery [next article].
    A shame – definitely not in ‘Ron‘ class. 😉

  6. Kinda off topic, but hey at least it’s the roundup. I have never seen anybody take such bate as Verstappen did with Hamilton. Verstappen has now said he has nothing to prove. Rides over. He has accomplished his mission. Not an anti-Verstappen fan, but he’s won… a few. No pressure. Nothing more to do.

    Omg lolll It’s gonna be fun watching this season unfold. I like Verstappen. And he’s done nothing personal to me. But he just lumped a heap of pressure on himself. Season is shaping up.

  7. I realise there’s not anything on the bendy wings story here, but I was wondering if anyone could tell me how they are proposing to change the flex test? Are they just going to demand stiffer wings at rest or something more sophisticated (e.g. using super slomo footage of the cars at speed)?

    1. My understanding was they would increase the static loads

  8. 20 bucks for 1 car, soft tyres only (that can’t be equipped on any other battle-car) and ten decals is a ripoff.
    Rocket League cars used to be 2 bucks a piece.
    I’ve seen several players rocking it already, so I guess it working… But I can’t say I’m happy with the pricing

    1. Also the hitbox doesn’t match at all ( https://youtu.be/nFoG85mZdak ) and the engine sound doesn’t match an actual F1 engine sound at all (it’s pretty much a copy and paste off the already existing Animus GP car).
      Really low effort.
      Would have been so much better with all five tyre options (and letting players use these tyre options on different battle-car’s as well), different engine sounds for different engine manufacturers and a hitbox that would include the nose instead of starting at the front wheels!

  9. Russell, Latifi, and Giovinazzi are all 185 cm tall, but somehow Gio looks a bit shorter in the image.

    Not much flexibility with the track layout, given the limited surrounding space, but maybe a different format, tyre rules, or something else.

    I disagree with the COTD on axing FLAP bonus points for Monaco.

  10. In response to the Racer article: “I can recall a race in Singapore where the tyres were very soft and the guy in front just queued everyone up until it was the opportune time for him then to change his tires.”

    Yes, and that guy lost the race. I’d say it’d worked out just fine.

    Monaco always brings up dozens of articles on how to fix it, but it can’t be. That’s not the point. It’s just a circus, a celebration of all the outlandish aspects of F1, from the insane cars to the people who finance the spectacle. People who, let’s not forget, all have a residence in Monaco because they love the weather there.

  11. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    22nd May 2021, 12:26

    The ‘fashion show’ annoys me so much. What fashion? They’re all pretty much wearing the same thing. Men’s fashion is so unbearably boring. Tan suit, black suit, brown suit, light-ish blue suit. Maybe mix it up with a t-shirt! Or trainers! Oh how daring, how interesting. Women can wear a variety of colour, shape, form and style but men? Suit.

    It’s so dull! I swear if I ever became famous enough to go to one of these ‘fashion shows’ I’m wearing the most noticable, colourful and dynamic outfit I can and will only wear a suit when I’m dead.

    I realise ranting about fashion makes no sense on an F1 forum, but here we are.

  12. Swimming Poor

    Quite apropos for Monaco.

Comments are closed.