Daniel Ricciardo says Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul should be “nervous” about their podium bet after finding the “sweet spot” of their 2020 car.
Last weekend, the Australian started and finished fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix, ending the race just 3.4 seconds behind Max Verstappen after a remarkable late charge.
Indeed, Ricciardo thinks had he not been caught up behind Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez after the Safety Car, he could well have beaten his former teammate to third at Spa.
“It was certainly surprising,” he said of his performance. “I knew we would have a decent car, but when I heard the lap times, and that the Mercedes was dropping off tails, I thought okay, maybe everyone’s just saving their engines.
“But it sounded like they were genuinely struggling a bit and we were just getting faster and faster and faster. It was really encouraging that pace at the end.”
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His pace was another example of how the Renault has become at least the third-fastest car on a low downforce setup and when it comes to optimising that, Ricciardo reveals the secret emerged a few weeks earlier.
“There is definitely something we picked up from Silverstone, like a sweet spot,” he explained.
“I found it in terms of feeling in the car ‘right, this is where we need to run the car’, and we played around a bit in Belgium as well with it.
“And again there was one session, I think it was FP2, where I was like ‘okay, we found the sweet spot’. So there is something fundamental which I think we’ve got a good choke-hold on.”
And if that can be found again at Monza, where Ricciardo finished fourth last year, he believes his bet of joint tattoos for himself and Abiteboul for a podium finish could be very much on.
“I think pretty nervous,” he said on how the Frenchman should be feeling ahead of this weekend. “I’ve just seen him now. I told him to stay alert over the next seven days.
“At least last year, Monza was an even stronger circuit for us: and if we are stronger there’s only a podium in front of us.
“I’m not getting ahead of myself, or the team isn’t, but I think we can go to Monza with confidence and aim high.”
After the Italian GP, however, most of the circuits, excluding Bahrain’s Outer ‘Oval’, put a much higher emphasis on aero, but Ricciardo does think there are elements that can be shared.
“I think we can get it working on high downforce tracks,” he explained. “It’s not typical to low downforce. We can run it on all levels, so I think it’s just finding what works best with high downforce.
“It certainly brings the car alive. So that’s something I’m pretty confident in, where the car likes to be run.
“I’m not sure we had something like this last year. I’m not sure we had a real discovery like this last year, so that’s been encouraging.”
Ricciardo does believe Renault could benefit from being more aggressive with its wing levels.
“I think we have to assess because obviously a lot of the time you go to a high downforce circuit and you just don’t even question it,” he said.
“We put the big wing on because that will be fastest, but I don’t know. I wonder if we try running lower at some typical high [downforce] circuits, and accept that’s a weakness now, and maybe see if we can make something work more with a smaller wing.”
