Ricciardo ready to go racing
DANIEL Ricciardo believes he has made a breakthrough with Renault’s F1 car, as the team now looks to take its own step forward in forthcoming races.
Ricciardo (pictured right) comes into this weekend’s Canadian GP — the scene of his maiden F1 victory five years ago — on the back of an encouraging Monaco, when he qualified in the top seven for the first time with Renault and finished in the points.
“In winter testing I thought that I got up to speed well, and that was that, but getting that last 5 per cent, that was going to take time,” the Australian said.
“But I’d like to say I’m in that window now, whereas I wasn’t in the first few weekends.”
After five seasons racing for Red Bull, Ricciardo admits that he has had to steadily adapt his driving style to a completely different car.
“Now I’m actually comfortable and I’m already starting to drive a little differently compared with what I was [doing] last year in some areas,” the Australian said.
“Even the way you brake into a corner or the way you pick up the throttle based on the characteristics [of the car], I feel I’ve already adopted new habits. Now it does [feel natural].”
Underlining his progress, Ricciardo has not been outqualified by teammate Nico Hulkenberg since the seasonopener in Australia.
“Nico came out strong at the start of the season and outqualified me in the first race,” said Ricciardo. “He only had one run in Q2 and I had two chances and didn’t get him. But since then I’ve been able to put it together.”
Having set the target on the eve of the campaign of closing the gap to F1’s leading three teams, Renault’s start to 2019 has been beset by disappointments with the works team only eighth in the standings after six rounds.
But with their engine now again able to run at full power after reliability improvements, Ricciardo says Montreal’s highspeed track will be the package’s biggest test yet in F1’s competitivee power stakes.
“This will be a good test for it. We know we have definitely made progress,” Ricciardo said.