Ricciardo pinpoints own major RB weakness

Daniel Ricciardo has highlighted his weakness in high-speed corners as where he is losing to RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.

Tsunoda has enjoyed a bright start to the 2024 season, scoring points in two races whilst Ricciardo is yet to trouble the points in his full-time return to the grid.

The eight-time grand prix winner said after qualifying in Australia that he could see where Tsunoda was faster, but that he could simply not access or deliver what the Japanese racer was doing in the car.

In trying to find solutions, Ricciardo has revealed how the team actually made his car slower and created a vicious circle.

"I am struggling to feel the car in the high-speed, and it is drawing some of the confidence out of me," Ricciardo told media including RacingNews365 ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, where he crashed out on the first lap.

"We've tried to look for stability, and sometimes stable is safer and slower and at the time, I thought it made sense, but in hindsight, we just ended up making the car slower, period.

In Australia, Ricciardo was comprehensively out-performed by Tsunoda, who claimed seventh place whilst the Perth-native was 12th.

He put this down of tying himself in knots.

"It is just trying to understand how to keep it on the edge, but in a place I can still feel comfortable," he said.

"Last year [Tsunoda] was an understeer car guy and I was an oversteer guy and that is what I was looking for, and to be fair, he's come up more towards what I wanted last year.

"But in Melbourne, we kind of went opposite ways and that's where I started thinking: 'Maybe we need to not get too lost.'

"We went through quite a lot post-Melbourne, and it is one of those where on a race weekend, you don't have the luxury of time with a couple of hours between sessions, but maybe some changes are not the right direction at the time."