Ricciardo left ‘puzzled’ in British Grand Prix as he concedes RB have lost out to rivals in upgrade battle

Daniel Ricciardo has acknowledged that RB were not competitive enough throughout the mixed conditions of the British Grand Prix, with the Australian left “a little bit puzzled” at times during a race that he ended in P13.

Across a wet-dry encounter at Silverstone, Ricciardo struggled to make gains from his original grid slot of P15 and later admitted that, despite hoping that the changing weather could throw the team an opportunity, they ultimately were lacking the speed to capitalise.

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“I don’t want to play the poor us card in terms of things not going our way,” Ricciardo said after the race. “I think it was a mixed conditions race and that excited us, to maybe grab some opportunities, but truth is we just weren’t competitive through all the conditions, I felt.

“We certainly lacked speed today, it was definitely tricky, so a pretty long race. Every time I saw the weather change, I thought maybe this is the moment where everything will come alive and we [get] something to show but, yeah, really just not a competitive day.

“Obviously these days it’s a long race, it’s a long 50-something laps, and you know when you don’t have it. You know it’s going to take something – maybe a change of conditions – to really turn it on, but we struggled.

“I feel like we struggled more than we should have – I know that this isn’t necessarily going to be a real competitive circuit for us, but I still felt relatively we struggled more, so [we’ll] try and get into it and figure out why that was.”

The triple header of races has brought mixed fortunes for RB, with the squad struggling in Spain off the back of bringing a major update package, through to snatching some points in Austria following a P9 result for Ricciardo.

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However, amid a tough weekend at Silverstone, Ricciardo was asked whether it was concerning to have faced a more challenging time at the circuit than had been expected.

“A week ago obviously we had a good race, we were in the points, but I think, compared to some of our competitors in the midfield, we have lost out a little bit in the latest kind of upgrade battle,” the 35-year-old explained.

“So, yeah, I think Budapest [is a] completely different circuit, so let’s see, but it’s not enough for us just to be like, ‘Yeah, that track will suit us and we’ll be okay’. We’ve obviously got to rectify some weaknesses, and I’ll obviously look at my race and figure out where I lacked the pace.

“But there were times we were missing about eight tenths a lap – I didn’t really feel like that was there. [I was] a little bit puzzled through moments of the race so, yeah, just one of those days.”

It was a slightly better Sunday for team mate Yuki Tsunoda, who scored the final point on offer by taking P10 after starting from 13th place and making the most of the inclement weather.

“It was a good race,” Tsunoda later commented. “I’m happy for it, especially [because] we knew that it’s going to be a difficult race, especially in dry conditions – actually rain helped this time to close the gap to the cars in front in the beginning of the race. I don’t normally appreciate the rain, but this time rain helped me quite a lot.”

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Looking ahead to the next race on the calendar in Hungary, Tsunoda is hopeful that the characteristics of the Hungaroring may suit the VCARB 01 more.

“I think to be honest, based on what we had in free practice in terms of pace [at Silverstone], we were expecting it to be a difficult race to get a point,” the 24-year-old added. “It’s one point, but we’ll still take it and just move forward.

“Hopefully it will be better [in the] coming races. So far I think that we had enough high-speed tracks – Hungary is a mix of low-speed [and] high-speed track, so hopefully we can use our strength to [be] back in the fight for the top-10.”

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