Daniel Riccardo is certain there’s room for improvement at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Australian driver finished fourth in the race at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve last season for Red Bull Racing but has yet to find similar pace so far this season.
Instead, Ricciardo has had to settle for midfield battles, rather than testing himself at the top of the grid but his consistency during Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 has given the team food for thought.
Discussing his practice sessions, Ricciardo explained: “Today’s been pretty good and we achieved a lot of running. We seem to be close to where we’re aiming but still want a bit more. We looked at the pace of a few others and know that there is still a bit of time to be found.”
Ricciardo took his Renault car around the circuit 31 times in Free Practice 1, setting a time of 1:14:123 and slotting into eighth place.
And he continued his form into Free Practice 2 where he completed 40 laps and set another eighth fastest time with a time of 1:13:016.
His lengthy time on track gave the team plenty to work with and Ricciardo spoke about the difference between his runs: “Both my long runs had quite a different balance so we’ll work out which one works better and go from there. We went through quite a few items and that was positive for us.”
Canada is a track Ricciardo is fond of and, thanks to his newfound home within the French-based Renault team, he’ll be expecting plenty of support in the French-speaking city of Montréal.
Rounding off a successful practice session, Ricciardo looked ahead to qualifying and added: “All in all, a good day where we put in a lot of laps around a really fun race track; I like it here!”
