Ricciardo encouraged by early feeling with Renault
The Honey Badger is facing his first days on track with the French squad, as he has to deal with the brand-new Renault RS19. Ricciardo feels confident with the car, despite a DRS failure that cost him a lot of time.
Daniel Ricciardo is experiencing his Renault debut during the first week of winter testing in Montmelò. The Aussie only collected 72 laps over the first two days, just a little more than the length of a single race in Circuit de Catalunya, which is not much compared to other title contenders mileage.
“It was a shorter day than I’d hoped with the DRS failure cutting our running early. Prior to that I felt encouraged and I was happy with our morning’s work. The tyres and the car behaved and the feeling was good and progressing well. I’m still getting familiar with everything; learning what tweaks do what to the balance on this car and going through the various setup changes”, Ricciardo said.
Lose a chunk of your rear wing 💥
— Formula 1 (@F1) 19 febbraio 2019
Still avoid the barriers 👀
Decent reactions, @danielricciardo 👏#F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/TBzt5ehoDk
Renault’s 2019 car performance will be crucial to determine Ricciardo’s future, as he’s related to both Ferrari and Mercedes even if he signed a two-year contract with the French team. Nico Hulkenberg will also be another issue for the Honey Badger, as the German is hunger to show the world his full potential against a strong teammate. It will important for both drivers to work together as best as possible to develop a car, as the team has a lot of work to do to catch up with front runners.
“I felt in our early running the feeling was more representative and to my comfort. It’s positive Nico was able to do a couple of longer runs this afternoon, which means the team had things to look at and assess overnight. Hopefully we will have a bit more time in the seat”, he added.
