Daniel Ricciardo was left “frustrated” as small problems hampered his first practice day with Renault in Australia.
Traffic in the morning left the local favourite down in 17th place before a seat problem caused a delay in the afternoon meant he was playing catch up.
Eventually, he would end the day a solid eighth, within a tenth of teammate Nico Hulkenberg, but the urge for more was clear when Ricciardo spoke afterwards.
“To be honest it was a bit more of a difficult day, and then we got the one lap in with the soft tyre at the end of FP2 which put us in a more competitive place,” he surmised.
“The long run wasn’t that good, either. We were a bit up and down.”
Pinpointing the main issue, Ricciardo continued: “There’s still a lot to learn with the car and still some ways to set it up and a few little tricks here and there.
“Nico obviously has a bit more knowledge with that, so [I’m] just trying to understand a bit of that direction, and for now I’ll probably learn a few things from him and maybe as time goes on he’ll learn some things from me.”
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On the seat issue, he revealed a problem with the measurements meant the seatbelts weren’t fastening as expected.
“It’s a bit of a time delay and I could tell everyone was getting frustrated, but it was all good, we finally got some laps in. I think the car doesn’t look too bad for now.
“Qualifying will be interesting tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it.”
