F1 News: Daniel Ricciardo Blames Broken Car For Lack Of Performance - 'Big Hole In My Car'

Saajan Jogia | Jul 10, 2024

Jun 7, 2024; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; RB driver driver Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) in the pit lane during the practice session at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports / Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

VCARB driver Daniel Ricciardo hoped there was a 'big hole' in his VCARB01 F1 car that was responsible for his recent performance setbacks. The Australian driver revealed that the team might have not been 'grasping' a problem, impacting his recent race results negatively.

Ricciardo believes that his car simply lacked pace during the British Grand Prix, noting that even Logan Sargeant's Williams FW46 showed superior speed as it overtook him. This disparity highlights ongoing challenges for Ricciardo, who has frequently been outperformed by teammate Yuki Tsunoda throughout the season.

The 35-year-old driver started P15 at Silverstone but finished outside of points at P13. Tsunoda, on the other hand, started 13th and scored a point with a 10th-place finish. Hoping that his team would find a problem to address the lack of pace, Ricciardo told the media:

“Hopefully there’s a big hole in my car that I haven’t seen yet, and that’s the reason why we’re really slow.

“We honestly, just as a team, for sure we struggle here. Looking at the Williams at the end on that stint, and Sargeant pulled away from me and I believe [Alex] Albon came and passed Tsunoda.

“Yuki got a point, he did well, but I think as a team we weren’t very competitive this weekend.”

Suggesting that his team might be overlooking something, he added:

“My engineer asked me where, what am I missing? What do I need? And I felt like I was saying, like, the balance and stuff was actually okay, feel like we’re just lacking load.

“That’s why, when I heard the lap times of the others, I was quite confused because I did the lap, and the lap felt pretty clean – a few little things, but felt decent.

“I was close to the potential the car, and that’s when I was like, I don’t really have an answer right now.

“Watching the other cars in front, I felt the high-speed they were really able to pull away a little bit more. So probably my explanation [is] we’re lacking a bit of load.

“Downforce is king, but I think there’s still things we missed, or my assumption is we missed some things, just with our car and optimising it.

“We have to, looking forward, make everything better but right now with what we had… probably still with set-up, there’s maybe a couple of things myself and the team are maybe not quite grasping.”