Daniel Ricciardo was able to complete fifty laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Monday despite seeing his morning running compromised by mechanical issues.
A sensor problem halted running early on, causing the first red flag of the day, before an energy store issue compromised the day further, but the Australian was able to get a decent amount of running towards the end of the day that propelled the Red Bull Racing driver to the fifth fastest time.
Ricciardo feels there is a lot still to come from the RB13, believing that he could have gone a lot quicker than he ultimately did, but now hands the car over to team-mate Max Verstappen for day two of the test on Tuesday.
“Today’s session was okay, I felt I got up to speed relatively quickly,” said Ricciardo. “We had a bit of a slow start this morning but the afternoon was better and the last two hours were more like a test.
“It’s nice to end the day on a bit of a positive. There’s still a lot more to come from the car and you have to remember that the track is cold and the tyres are probably not at their optimum temperature. However, the times Lewis was setting today were already quicker than the times in Qualifying last year, so for sure it’s going to be faster.
“It’s cool for now but I think we will get a lot quicker from where we are today. We’ll hope to make steady steps tomorrow when Max is in the car and then we can start to do some more trimming.”
