Riccardo on RB’s “shifting point” of 2024

Daniel Ricciardo believes Racing Bulls is facing a “shifting point” moment with the 2024 Formula 1 season at midway.

A Spanish Grand Prix upgrade including a new floor, rear wing and bodywork was hoped to push Racing Bulls towards the front of the midfield but some issues have surfaced in recent races despite both drivers creeping into the points.

Ricciardo secured a second Grand Prix points finish of 2024 with a ninth in Austria and while he came home 13th in Silverstone, teammate Yuki Tsunoda was 10th.

But Racing Bulls was hoping for more and after an exhausting triple header, the fortnight before the Hungarian and Belgian Grand Prix double looms as a key development phase ahead of the summer break.

As a result the experienced Ricciardo believes the decisions made now will have a massive say on how the remainder of the 2024 campaign goes.

“This could be a real kind of shifting point,” Ricciardo told Autosport.

“You’re at that moment where you need to make the best calls. Every moment of F1 is important, but this update and our correlation, and our understanding, can obviously dictate what we do with the next update and how well we understand it.

“What we learn now will basically dictate where our car is in October and November, so it’s a really important period for us.”

Having been racing in Formula 1 since 2011 when teammate Tsunoda was just 11, Ricciardo feels his experience will be crucial.

“I’m obviously not an engineer and not an aerodynamicist, but in these moments, I feel our duty as a driver is to just give as much as we can,” he said.

“Feelings, feedbacks, positives, negatives, comparisons to other cars, everything – just to give them as much understanding of why we are where we are at the moment.

“I throw a lot on the table and just say ‘you guys deal with it’ but yeah, it’s obviously a little bit like that. We have to just put it all out there.

“Hopefully they can understand it and the simulator stuff as well, what we feel on the sim, and just try to correlate that to the real car.

“It’s a team effort. There’s a little bit for us to go (through) from these last three weeks.”

Racing Bulls currently sit sixth in the teams standings but has lost significant ground to a rapidly improving Haas in recent races.

Spearheaded by Nico Hulkenberg, the American outfit has slashed the deficit down to just four points.

Ricciardo is wary of the threat.

“Nico has scored big two weekends in a row now, and all of a sudden our sixth place in the constructors, the gap isn’t there anymore,” the Aussie said.

“We know this sport can shift so quickly, and you never rest and that’s why, in fairness to the team, we brought updates a couple of weeks ago, we were pushing, we’ve been bringing updates every few races, and they’ve (mostly) actually been working really well.

“This one hasn’t as much as certainly we would have wanted, but it’s not due to lack of effort.

“You see Haas. They’ve obviously found something, so there is lap time there. 

“There are things that we can find. So, we have got to make sure we find them.”

Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool

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