Daniel Ricciardo Urges VCARB to “Not Get Too Greedy” as FP2 Experiment Backfires

Daniel Ricciardo is reportedly at risk of losing his RB seat, with Red Bull youngster Liam Lawson poised to replace him. Ricciardo knows he must elevate his performance in the final eight races of the season and will need full support from his team to do so. As such, he has urged the Faenza-based outfit to avoid ‘experimenting’ as they did in Baku on Friday.

FP1 was promising for Ricciardo, as he finished 10th, just 1.1 seconds behind leader Max Verstappen. However, he took a step backward in FP2, ending up 16th, over 1.6 seconds behind Charles Leclerc’s fastest time.

Ricciardo confirmed that RB had made changes to the setup after FP1. As quoted by Speedcafe, he said, “We made some changes for FP2 and, yeah, didn’t quite work out for us. Ideally, a change is for the best, but we didn’t really feel like the conclusion of this one was positive”

“We’ll go back tomorrow and try to tweak a few other things, so from that point of view, I wish we would have found a little more,” the 35-year-old added. “Saying that, we know what worked this morning, so try and just get a little bit more out of that and maybe not get too greedy with set-ups.”

The Azerbaijan GP has been on the calendar since 2016, but this year, it has been scheduled much later in the season. With different conditions, teams are struggling to find the optimal setup.

Another challenge for the drivers is the dust on the track. Leclerc crashed in FP1 after going off the track and hitting a dusty patch on his rear tires. Ricciardo faced similar issues and voiced his concerns as well.

The honey badger said, “It started off really slippery and dirty. And trying to address some of that mid-corner is really weak, traction is poor. So overall level of grip is low.”

Ricciardo has decided to go back to the FP1 setup. The Aussie will further tweak it to get the maximum out of the car in Qualifying on Saturday.