The third day of winter testing for the 2017 Formula One Season saw Daniel Ricciardo at the helm of the Red Bull Racing’s car, taking over the role from team-mate Max Verstappen.
Unlike many of the other teams, Red Bull are allowing their drivers whole days in the car, rather than swapping them over at lunch, meaning that Ricciardo got in a full day of running. The morning session saw him put 48 laps on the board, and post the third fastest time, 1:21.153. This put him behind the two leaders, Valterri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel.
The afternoon session was not as successful for the popular Australian, as an exhaust issue meant that he was only able to complete another 22 laps, taking his total to 70 laps overall. Nevertheless, his times in the morning were good enough to keep him in third, ahead of the two Renault Sport Formula 1 Team drivers.
“Day two in the car for me and we got a few more laps in, which was good,” he commented. “I definitely learned more about the car and the tyres today and really started to feel the downforce.”
Ricciardo also mentioned the added physical demands of the cars with the new regulations, especially over the race distance.
“I think when we start doing 60 laps in the heat you’re going to see some physical limits being pushed for us drivers.”
“This afternoon we found a problem with the exhaust. We had check that, which took some time, but before that we had a pretty good run of nearly 20 laps, which was important for understanding the tyres. For now we haven’t got too involved in performance runs. Hopefully next week we can push it a bit more and then see what we’ve got.”
