Ricciardo doubts Red Bull has made progress
Daniel Ricciardo is sceptical that Red Bull's short nose updates have delivered what was hoped for after a disappointing qualifying performance at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Photo by: XPB Images
After a big effort to get the short nose concept through the FIA crash test, Red Bull was finally able to run its new aerodynamic concept at Barcelona for the first time.
But despite high hopes for its performance, Ricciardo ended up 10th on the grid, with team-mate Daniil Kvyat just two places ahead.
When asked if the updates had delivered all that was expected, Ricciardo said: "Right now, it is hard to say too much positive in terms of pure laptime.
"We are two seconds off the pole, so there is not progress. I don't know if it is not from that [update] or what.
"Clearly we are not competitive this weekend, so we definitely hoped for more. Maybe we can still make it work better, but we haven't found the way it wants to behave."
He added: "Realistically we are not going to find a second more with it. So we would have liked more, definitely."
Ricciardo blamed a poor third sector on his final lap in Q3 for not doing better.
"To be honest I thought we had done pretty well today up until Q3," he said. "In [third] practice and Q1/Q2 we adapted as well as we could and I thought we were doing as well as we could with what the track time we had.
"In Q3 it was looking half decent and in the third sector, which was definitely my strongest sector out of the three in qualifying, I lost all of my grip there.
"I lost the rear into Turn 10 and then it was a snowball effect for the last sector. All my gain was lost and right now there no explanation, so it is just frustrating."
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