Ricciardo ‘badly affected’ by major issue F1 team needs to solve

A frustrating weekend resulted in another poor GP finish for Daniel Ricciardo, who is still looking for answers to his troubles.

A frustrating weekend that started with an early elimination in qualifying continued on Sunday evening for Daniel Ricciardo, who finished 13th in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Ricciardo ran long on the hard tyre at the start of the race and was able to catch a few drivers on mediums in front of him.

However, the Australian then started to run into an issue with graining which only worsened as the race wore on.

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Team principal Laurent Mekies said the amount of tyre graining Ricciardo had to deal with was “extremely unusual”, while the Australian said he had “never” experienced graining like it.

“I felt like we dropped so far back,” Ricciardo said of a race won by compatriot Oscar Piastri for McLaren.

“I was definitely in no man’s land. We tried to do all we could.”

Ricciardo added that his engineer Pierre Hamelin apologised after the race, although the veteran driver understood all the communication from the team throughout the race was just them trying to help.

In the end, Ricciardo said everyone was left “scratching our heads” with the graining.

“We expected some graining but losing two, three seconds a lap was not what we expected,” he said.

“It was so weird … we dropped so much and then all of a sudden it started to clear.

“I think my lap time swing was four seconds, it was crazy from when it was really bad to when it cleared.

“I never would have expected it came back the way it did.”

Mekies, RB’s team principal, said Ricciardo’s pace was “badly affected” by the graining and added it was something the team “needs to get to the bottom of”.

Technical director Jody Egginton had a similar message after the race, admitting there is “something specific we need to fix” ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix next week.

“Daniel’s race started OK with the car appearing reasonably well balanced, but was totally dominated by severe tyre graining, leading to a significant drop off in pace and track position,” he said.

“He got back on the pace, but the damage was done, and it was impossible to recover without the intervention of a safety car, which did not come, so we boxed him late on.

“It appears we were significantly more affected by graining than other teams, so clearly there is something specific we need to fix ahead of Singapore, which the team back at base and trackside are already very focused on delivering.”

Originally published as Ricciardo ‘badly affected’ by major issue F1 team needs to solve