Daniel Ricciardo was certainly less than satisfied with his Renault after a difficult Friday at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Australian was a massive 1.2s down on teammate Nico Hulkenberg in 15th following the lower fuel run in the evening session.
And, despite having a new chassis following his start-line incident in Melbourne, he had little positive to say in assessing the R.S.19’s performance.
“It was quite difficult, especially on the qualifying sim in the afternoon,” Ricciardo told the media.
“I mean, I was a long way off, so we are just trying to figure out why. I think once we did the long run on high fuel it seemed a bit more representative again, but I certainly feel it can be better.”
The former Red Bull driver was also happy to go into specifics of where his Renault is lacking.
“I’ll try and answer it well instead of saying more grip. Er, traction, well it’s not just traction – there are a few things we’re trying to improve: driveability, ride and response of the car, things like this,” he explained.
“I feel there’s quite a few things that are fighting against each other in a way, so once we clean that up, then hopefully that improves the traction.”
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As for Hulkenberg, he was putting himself firmly into contention for the ‘best of the rest’ prize in Bahrain, finishing ahead of Max Verstappen in P5 on Friday evening.
“If a Friday is good I’m not one of those guys who reads too much into it,” he said downplaying the result. “I think other people didn’t reach their full potential today.
“Obviously the timesheet looks good, the long run times look OK, but the feeling wasn’t that great in the car, to be honest.
“We were still far off with the balance in my opinion. We need to keep working and keep finding some harmony and lap time.
“I think Daniel had – I don’t know exactly, I don’t think he had the best of laps and had a bit of a struggle this afternoon. So don’t read too much into it.”
