Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo has joined his team in putting pressure on engine supplier Renault after completing just 13 laps in the first two practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Ricciardo’s car required an engine change between the practice sessions, putting him one failure away from a 10-place grid penalty. He had initially used an old engine in the morning, but problems meant it needed to be changed for his fourth of the season in time for FP2.
Ricciardo wanted to keep the engine for as long as possible but knew it would be a task to achieve it; has stated that the current situation is not acceptable at the moment and he is doing everything that he possibly can to rectify the situation.
“I think ideally we wanted to keep one in for all the day, but that was always going to be optimistic,” said Ricciardo to ESPN F1. “So we expected the change to come but we probably tried to hold on a bit too long and that’s why it delayed it.
“I think because we have to try to save mileage on this engine we realistically wouldn’t have done that much more this afternoon, probably one more run. There was always going to be a limit today for running.
“We all know it’s not quite acceptable. It’s out of my control and I am doing what I can with what I’ve got, so the main thing is we keep this one going until after Monaco because the last place you want a penalty is at Monaco. Fingers crossed it lasts at least two weekends and we’ll assess everything after that.”
The Red Bull RB10 features several upgrades this weekend, including a new, shorter nose which was trialled on team mate’s Daniil Kvyat’s car and has been in the pipeline since the start of the season, and Ricciardo believes there is a lot of potential with the RB10 and there is a lot of work for the team to do to achieve it.
“There’s a lot of potential with it all and I don’t think we got it working in the window that we should have done, at least not on my car, “ added Ricciardo. “It’s hard because I just did two laps this afternoon and it wasn’t where I wanted it to be. It will be better, we just have to understand what it likes.”
