The Infiniti Red Bull Racing team saw both drivers finish in the top ten in the Spanish Grand Prix, but neither Daniel Ricciardo nor Daniil Kvyat were happy with their performance, and both ended up a lap behind of race winner Nico Rosberg, with Ricciardo seventh and Kvyat tenth.
Ricciardo felt he extracted the most from his car during the race, moving up from his tenth place on the grid to finish seventh, but acknowledges he and the team remain well off the pace, but hopes for a better race in Monaco in two weeks time.
“I am more satisfied today as we achieved everything we could and seventh was the maximum I could get out of the car,” revealed Ricciardo. “There were some parts of the race that were encouraging but we’re still further off than where we want to be, but we’ll keep pushing.
“We came here with upgrades this weekend but they didn’t give us what we were expecting, so that’s something we’ll keep working on. We’re still a fair bit behind Williams at the moment but I think we have a good chance to close the gap a bit further in Monaco.”
Team-mate Kvyat ended the race tenth after losing ninth on the last lap to Carlos Sainz Jr, but admitted he did not have the pace after having his race compromised by a poor first lap. His bright point was seeing both cars finish the race without any mechanical problems, and like Ricciardo is looking forward to a more competitive weekend in Monaco.
“We didn’t have enough pace today,” said Kvyat. “I had a poor opening lap, dropping a few places and from then on that compromised my race. Because here at this track, if you lose places at the start, it’s almost game over, as it is so hard to get close enough to pass.
“I had a nice battle with Sainz towards the end, but we need to improve the car in every area at the moment. On the positive side, both our cars finished the race, which is good on the reliability front.
“This was a bad day for me, so now I just want to look ahead to Monaco in the hope we can be more competitive there.”
