The first day of the Grand Prix of Europe has proven to be extremely daunting to Red Bull. The team of austria has not had at any time a great competitive pace over a lap, suffering greatly in the long straights of the circuit of Baku. Despite improvements in its unit Renault-TAG Heuer, the car does not seem to have taken up the challenge of the new path in terms of performance.
Daniel Ricciardo was, without a doubt, the epitome of a bad day for the team from Milton Keynes. In the first few workouts free, the australian pilot was the first weekend in accidentarse, when striking with force against the barriers of the curve 15, smashing the back of your car. A commendable job by his team allowed him to be on the track in the free seconds, where he ended up in 10th place, improving the 12th of the morning, but at a distance major of the head.
Ricciardo broke in to praise the australian circuit, and he emphasized that his team still has work to do to get the tires to heat up more easily, and find the times that today I have not come:
“I Think the circuit is pretty cool, it really is as narrow as it seems, and several curves are like no other in the calendar. There are a few interesting lines, past the castle, which gives it more hardness. It is quite unique, and, as I demonstrated this morning, some of the curves are quite challenging and not so simple. On the positive side, the guys have done a great job to get the car ready for free seconds and be able to use the entire session.
“If you want to be fast on a street circuit, you have to find the limit and get close to the walls. In general, we look for some grip and we’re not entirely where we want to. As we discovered in the other new circuits above, get the tires to work is not easy, so when we improve on that, we will find some more tenths”.
The disaster of Red Bull in the first session of free already started, the car Max Verstappen. A mechanical problem limited their presence to only 7 times and a 15th position. It was a lot better in the afternoon, getting the seventh-best time, 1.8 seconds from the time of Lewis Hamilton.
The pilot Dutch lamented the lost time in the first session and is confident that the team can find the setup right for qualifying up. In addition, also showed his concern over certain aspects of the track:
“it Is a pity that we have not been able to do great thing in the
FP1. If you stop doing those laps in the first session, you lose a bit in
issues of configuration of the car, and from the point of view of a pilot,
you want more laps in order to feel comfortable. we Knew that we would not be the most
strong on the straights, especially with a line so long, so we have to
find a compromise on the setup to get the most”.
In general, the track itself is quite fun to ride, although some pianos were lifted up, so that we need to have a discussion -with the FIA – about that, and the exit of the pit lane is also not ideal, so maybe they can stretch it a little.
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