Daniel Ricciardo judges that he was close to extracting the maximum performance from his Renault during the last day of pre-season testing.
Daniel Ricciardo finished the last day of Barcelona’s winter testing in third place with a time of 1'16 "276, which earned him the lead at midday. The Australian looks back on his last half test day, since he left the wheel at Esteban Ocon in the afternoon, and judges that it could not have gone much faster, confirming that Renault has shown its full potential in Spain.
"There is this part where you are reserved because these are not tests and we had the C5 tires", explains Ricciardo, who also has no illusions. "We know we're not as fast as Mercedes right now, and I don't know what they were doing, but I don't want to get carried away. I'm not necessarily excited about this first place, but when I say that, I know that if we had put the C5 and I was sixth, I would have been disappointed. "
"It's good, we could at least have had a good lap. We knew how to use the right tires in the right way, so there is something positive. We have been doing this for a long time enough to know that it is not necessarily the positions we’ll qualify for in Melbourne. But it’s good to see that we’ve been able to do a quick lap. "
However, the Renault driver judges that the record for these winter tests, signed by Valtteri Bottas last week in 1'15 "732, was not achievable with the Renault RS20:" There is always a tenth [to be won], but at best, we could have made 1'16 "0, 1'16" 1, I don't think there were three tenths to win to go under 1'16 ". I progressed well between the first train of C5 and the second one, I won two or three tenths. Maybe I could have found a little more with another set of gums. But we were good with what we had. "
With three days of driving under his belt, he is also able to better judge the progress made by the French car: "I think we have generally improved the balance of the car. I feel that the rear is more stable, and in the corners at medium speed, we can get out a little harder. There is progress. So far, reliability has been good, something Renault has done a lot to improve. So far, everything I'm fine. "
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