It was a decidedly frosty begin to the 2024 Method 1 season for Visa Money App RB F1 Staff. After displaying promise early within the week forward of the Bahrain Grand Prix, together with Daniel Ricciardo topping the timing sheets throughout FP1, the workforce completed exterior of the factors within the Grand Prix on Saturday. Not solely that, their day ended with their two drivers having a little bit of a dust-up on the radio, and on the monitor, after the checkered flag flew.
Now, with the grid prepared to move to Jeddah for subsequent weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the workforce is seeking to “flip the web page.”
The frustration stems from a set of workforce orders late within the race. With Tsunoda working in P13 on a set of arduous tires, and Ricciardo behind him in P14 on a set of softs, the order got here for Tsunoda to let Ricciardo by. The workforce probably held the hope that the Australian driver would have the ability to chase down Kevin Magnussen for P12 and perhaps discover a approach to steal a degree if he may pull off one thing particular.
Nonetheless, Tsunoda initially questioned the request, and didn’t instantly let Ricciardo by. He finally agreed to the request, however continued to query the set of orders as Ricciardo did not chase down Magnussen.
Then, after the checkered flag, Tsunoda pulled off one final overtake within the race — of Ricciardo himself — and the 2 almost got here collectively. That’s when Ricciardo aired some frustration of his personal over the workforce radio:
Now, the workforce is seeking to transfer previous the incident.
“We weren’t fairly adequate for factors in the present day. I struggled quite a bit at first of the race with the used comfortable [tires] as a result of there was a reasonably poor grip off the road. Within the center stint with the arduous tyres, we obtained slightly bit extra tempo, however I anyway felt that I used to be struggling. In the long run, the brand new comfortable compound was quite a bit higher,” mentioned Ricciardo within the workforce’s post-race report.
Ricciardo additionally reiterated, as he did with the media following the race, that the workforce orders had been mentioned forward of the race among the many workforce.
“We lastly extracted some tempo and had been catching the pack. At that time, I obtained slightly caught behind different vehicles and I misplaced the grip on the [tires]. The decision for the drivers’ swap was fairly anticipated and got here with no shock,” added Ricciardo. “Earlier than the race, we clearly talked with the workforce about technique plans, and it was extremely probably I used to be going to complete the race with a brand new set of sentimental [tires] after beginning the race with a used set. It’s what it’s, and let’s flip the web page now. I’ve obtained an concept of what we are able to do to be higher, so I’ve some confidence in going racing subsequent week in Jeddah.”
For his half, Tsunoda centered on the long run.
“I believe I used to be doing fairly nicely throughout the factors till about midway by the race once I felt it was slipping away from us. We weren’t preventing for factors at the moment, so we’ll must assessment every thing throughout our post-race evaluation and study from it for the long run. It’s race one, so there’s nonetheless a lot of time to know,” mentioned Tsunoda. “On the whole, there’s nonetheless quite a bit we are able to take away from this weekend, the mechanics did an awesome job with all our pitstops, and if there may be something we may do higher strategy-wise, we’ll assessment and enhance for Saudi.”
Laurent Mekies, the brand new workforce’s new Staff Principal, addressed the workforce orders in his post-race feedback.
’Total, a tricky Saturday the place the midfield was tighter than ever. The battle for P11 was a tough one with eight vehicles concerned at occasions! Within the early stage of the race, we felt we may have had a superb go at it, with Yuki doing a superb job and driving as much as P10. We misplaced a couple of positions because the race went on and struggled to cross our opponents within the remaining stage of the race,” mentioned Mekies. “We had Daniel on a brand new set of sentimental tyres for that remaining stint and we swapped our vehicles to present ourselves an opportunity to overhaul Kevin [Magnussen] and Zhou [Guanyu] however finally it was not sufficient, and we needed to accept P13 and P14.”
Much like Tsunoda, Mekies additionally turned his focus to the long run.
“We all know that it is just race one, however we will definitely assessment how we may have extracted extra from our automobile and our tempo in the present day. There are extra positives than negatives in our first weekend as Visa Money App RB and everyone seems to be pushing very arduous in Faenza and Bicester,” added Mekies. “Any hundredths of a second gained within the midfield are going to make a big distinction.’’
