Daniel Ricciardo predicts that the pace of Formula One will pick up in 2017 and – despite some early hiccups – hopes Red Bull will be one of those outfits turning on the speed.
Mercedes dominated the first day of Formula One pre-season testing in Montmelo as Ricciardo managed just four laps in his Red Bull in the morning session.
Fortunately for the Australian Red Bull ironed out its early problems and he was able to record 50 laps for the day, finishing with the fifth quickest time.
“Today’s session was okay, I felt I got up to speed relatively quickly,” Ricciardo told the team website.
“We had a bit of a slow start this morning but the afternoon was better and the last two hours were more like a test. It’s nice to end the day on a bit of a positive.
“There’s still a lot more to come from the car and you have to remember that the track is cold and the tyres are probably not at their optimum temperature.”
After seeing Lewis Hamilton clock the day’s fastest lap in his Mercedes, bettering Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by 0.113 seconds, Ricciardo couldn’t help but think there were going to be some blistering times set this year.
“The times Lewis was setting today were already quicker than the times in qualifying last year, so it’s going to be faster,” Ricciardo said.
“It’s cool for now but I think we will get a lot quicker from where we are today. We’ll hope to make steady steps tomorrow when Max (Verstappen) is in the car and then we can start to do some more trimming.”
In four hours of driving before lunch, Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas outworked the rest of the field with 79 laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. That total surpassed the 66 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix at the same venue.
Only Vettel and Felipe Massa ended up with more laps, but that was in double the time following the entire eight-hour session.
Mercedes’ rivals are hoping the regulation changes will help them make up ground on a team that has won 51 of the last 59 races but other than Vettel’s positive showing, there was little sign that the gap had closed.
Fernando Alonso was the driver left with the most frustrations, after rejecting an approach from Mercedes to replace Nico Rosberg, his McLaren again failed to do the job.
McLaren’s engine partners Honda blamed an oil system problem that took hours to fix – it made for a frustrated former world champion.
“It’s definitely not a perfect start of the winter testing,” said Alonso.
“We are disappointed, we are sad to arrive to the first day and not be able to run.”
