Following Friday’s pair of follow classes, the crew at Visa Money App RB F1 Group believed getting each Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda into the third phase of Saturday’s qualifying session was an achievable objective. They did simply that on Saturday, as each drivers began the System 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix inside the highest ten. That meant a brand new objective: Double factors for the crew.
Nonetheless, that dream ended nearly instantly after the lights went out at Imola.
Each Tsunoda and Ricciardo bought off to poor begins, which value them place on the observe, pressured a change in technique and finally, their goals of a double-points end in VCARB’s house race. Tsunoda completed tenth after beginning seventh, securing a degree for the crew. As for Ricciardo, regardless of beginning up in ninth he got here throughout the road P13, outdoors the factors.
“Our begin compromised our race,” stated Tsunoda to F1.com following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. “We didn’t plan to pit that early, however we misplaced a few positions firstly so we needed to. The beginning was positively the primary half that we now have to repair.”
“I don’t assume something went unsuitable with the beginning process, I felt like I did the whole lot proper, however sadly, dropping that beginning place did value us the factors within the race. We’ll determine it out as a crew, simply because there’s a little bit of an absence of consistency there and we instantly dropped out of the factors,” stated Ricciardo within the crew’s post-race report. “Then through the race we had been in a prepare of automobiles, and being there with the soiled air, it’s a weak point in the meanwhile for us. We’ll maintain taking a look at it. I believe with the clear air our tempo was okay and I used to be doing respectable instances, however as quickly as we bought in some site visitors we felt like we struggled extra.”
Jody Egginton, the crew’s Technical Director, hailed the purpose from Tsunoda however admitted to some “frustration” on the total consequence.
“It’s good to return away with a degree from Yuki however there’s additionally a slight feeling of frustration as we had the tempo to presumably be additional up the street on the finish of the race,” stated Egginton. “Nonetheless, we misplaced locations with each automobiles off the beginning and that pushed us into making an earlier-than-planned cease to try to get better, that means we needed to go longer than we needed on the second set of [tires]. That opened up the chance for [Lance] Stroll to go lengthy with much less site visitors and he took good benefit of this.”
Group Principal Laurent Mekies mirrored on the “positives” of the weekend, earlier than providing a preview of the Monaco Grand Prix.
“Even when immediately’s race leaves us somewhat bit disenchanted, as a greater begin from each Yuki and Daniel would have in all probability created a greater state of affairs for us, a degree is a degree and there are lots of positives to remove from the weekend,” stated Mekies. “Our qualifying efficiency proves that the upgrades we carried out in Miami are positively bringing us efficiency to go on combating for sixth place within the Championship.
“And now we feature that momentum ahead to face the distinctive problem of Monaco. Daniel has been on the rostrum there no fewer than 4 instances, together with a win, and Yuki is presently in nice kind, so we can be pushing for one more robust efficiency from the entire crew.”
