Ricciardo: At least I didn’t crash in Q1

2017 Australian Grand Prix

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Daniel Ricciardo said he was unhurt but disappointed after crashing out during qualifying for his home race.

The Red Bull driver will start Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix from no better than tenth on the grid after spinning into a barrier during Q3.

Australian Grand Prix qualifying in pictures
“I’m physically OK, emotionally obviously a little bit disappointed with the outcome, but that’s what happens,” he told reporters. “At least it didn’t happen in Q1, I’ll try to have a bit of perspective on this.”

“The lap in Q3 was a little bit messy and turn 14 caught me out, caught me by surprise. Just went in and then the rear broke away. Unfortunately there wasn’t a way of catching it and saving it.”

Red Bull were off the pace in qualifying by more than a second but Ricciardo says they made some gains during qualifying.

“We did alright, we made progress,” he said. “In Q2 we made a big step. Q1 was not very competitive and then we found something.”

Max Verstappen is the team’s higher starter in fifth place but doubts Red Bull will be able to compete with Mercedes and Ferrari.

“We don’t have the pace to challenge the Ferraris and the Mercedes,” he told Sky. “I’m realistic.”

Verstappen said he expects “probably a very lonely race because behind me is also a big gap.” He also believes making progress will be difficult in the new, higher-downforce cars. “In terms of racing it will be more boring because tomorrow who will take first in turn one will win the race.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “Ricciardo: At least I didn’t crash in Q1”

  1. Speaking about that first turn, we might get some surprises at the start with the reduced driver aid in 2017. New season, new car, tougher clutches … some guys will choke!

    1. Micheal (@shakengandulf)
      25th March 2017, 8:16

      Yes mark webber was talking about this..
      Hamilton kept spinning the wheels while apparently Ricciardo nailed a decent one.
      (He’s going to need it)

      Obviously hamilton has to defend his position at the start but those around him have a great opportunity to steal it away.

      1. I am actually surprised nobody is really focussing on this. This morning Max commented that he’s already happy to get the car decently of its place when driving out of the pit box. In combination with fatigue kicking in during the race there seem to be some openings for surprises tomorrow. Can’t wait!

        1. @vinnivinni It really only makes a difference at the start, other than that it’s shifting as usual. So there’s no “combination with fatigue”. The start is more tricky due to reduced driver aids (clutch) and the race will be more tricky due to cars being more difficult to drive and more G forces, although the latter isn’t really the case in Melbourne.

          1. @addvariety That’s actually what I meant: both the start and the end of the race have some ingredients for surprise. Those ingredients ‘combined’ should make up a for a fun first race of the season.

          2. @vinnivinni Alright then, I was under the impression you might have thought the racing itself was more difficult by the renewed clutch system. But yeah, things should be a lot more interesting!

  2. Interesting 3rd angle on the official video where you can see the car just floating across the gravel trap, rear tyres not digging in at all really.

    1. @deltas4 Why do you think offroad vehicles have much wider tyres than your average sedan?

  3. Cannot remember Ric crashing a f1 car thru his own doing.. maybe he has??

    1. Micheal (@shakengandulf)
      25th March 2017, 8:17

      He has but very rare.

    2. Crashed a Torro rosso in Singapore one year in the race.

    3. @nosehair True. I’ve looked at a lot of onboard laps (my F1 tv subscriptions has a dedicated onboard channel) and noticed there’s a huge difference in how composed and therefore easy to drive the cars look. Mercedes, Ferrari, Toro Rosso, Haas and McLaren look very composed. No jittery steering wheel and not much corrections need going into and coming out of the corner.
      On the other hand, Red Bull, Williams, Sauber look especially awful. All 3 of them have huge shifts from understeer to oversteer with an insane amount of corrections needed, even on the straights. Renault and Force India are a bit in between from what I’ve seen so far in FP2 and Quali.

    4. Baku 2016…. somehow no one wants to remember, in canaday he kissed the wall in Q3, that was a close call

      1. Ric crashed pretty hard at Baku during his one of his first few laps in FP1. Rear-right was in shambles and I believe the session was redflagged even.

  4. I wondered whether the “shark fin” contributed to Ricciardo’s car spinning out. It seemed to me the car started to slip, but at first the tyres seemed to still be gripping the track, then, as the angle became more acute, the tyres suddenly just lost all ability to grip the track.

    1. @Stephen Crowsen:

      The wider rears gaining a lot of grip, but if you lose the car, the loss of grip is massive as well

    2. Maybe Rosberg retired because he feared gusts of wind might have a stronger impact on the cars with the shark fins…

    3. I guess it’s just because of the downforce. It’s all very finely balanced and once that balance is disrupted then that grip disappears. It’s always been the case for high-downforce cars, even more so now that the cars are that much more reliant on it.

    4. Actually, if anything the shark fin would help prevent this, as the the force of the air would be pushing against the fin (toward the center of the rear)

      1. Pilot & F1 fan
        25th March 2017, 21:03

        But, as the car continues to rotate and increase slip angle the shark fin would “stall” the air running over (it Dan Ric’s case) the right hand side of the engine cover and rear diffuser in fact creating lift. That’s why they snap so quick – the rear of the car goes from creating down force to lift the more it yaws.

        1. Sounds frightening.

  5. Unfortunate for Ricciardo but jeez the lack of pace by the Red Bull is seriously disappointing. 1.3 seconds – may as well be in a different race. So much for the aero-kings.

  6. Disappointed. He really had the upper hand on Max all weekend up until that spin. He’s got to avoid mistakes like these if he wants to win the inter team battle.

    1. You could name that upper hand if you like to, FP1 RIC was a bit faster, but FP1 is hardly relevant especially FP1 after the winterstops. In FP2 Ver was 0.4 behind on supersoft while Ric was on ultrasofts. FP3 irrelevant as no real time was set.

      Q1, Ver faster, Q2 Ver was 0.1 sec behind on used tyres while Ric was on fresh rubber, Q3 Ver P5 while Ric crashed.
      Just before the crash Ver was doing better pace.

      I can’t make any conclusion Ric was on top until Q3….

  7. Red Bull had seen themselves as title contenders this year.
    Sure they’re saying they are going to develop the car at an intense rate later on, but what if the points gap is too big by the time they catch up. They might win a few races later on, but won’t the most important thing (the titles) be out of their reach by then?
    Hard to see them compete for it, if their off the pace that much.

    1. After testing RedBull themselves have said that they weren’t able to win. At least not early on.

      The pundits in the media and probably quite a few fans kept tellng themselves that the RBR in testing would not be the RBR in Melbourne. It did have a minor upgrade but by and large the RBR is where it was in testing relative to Merc and Ferrari. Hopefully they can outdevelop the others and close the gap to make it a three-way fight.

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