Daniel Ricciardo is desperate to end a tough 2019 on a high for Renault.
The Australian’s first season at the French manufacturer has been difficult as a combination of reliability, incidents and an underwhelming chassis has meant they haven’t made the progress that was expected.
There have been highs, however, notably P6 in Canada and P4 in Italy, but after a tricky run of races since Monza, Ricciardo was feeling downbeat as he prepared to start 16th at Suzuka.
“Certainly I was thinking the ‘same kind of crap,’ and that we can’t really get a break with issues and whatever,” he was quoted by Yahoo Sport.
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“But I feel like we finally got a result we deserve and we’ve got back-to-backs coming up now, some fun ones.
“So hopefully we can get a string of points finishes and try to just get something for the team.”
That result was a sixth-place finish following a late charge through the field in Japan and now, with just four races left, Ricciardo is keen to avoid another dip.
“We get there, then we drop and kind of the heads drop a bit, and we’re trying to get back up,” he explained.
“So just for everyone’s sake, we need to try to keep some positivity before the year is out.”
Of course, lingering over Renault’s result in Suzuka is the protest lodged by Racing Point accusing the team of running an automatic brake bias system.
As the investigations continue by the FIA, if found guilty, what has already been a bad year for the team could get a lot, lot worse.