Daniel Ricciardo believed he had a chance to win the Bahrain Grand Prix, and early in the race he certainly looked up for it but in the end, on Pirelli soft tyres, his Red Bull lacked the pace to match Ferrari and Mercedes.
Indeed the team have looked a lot closer to the pace setters in Bahrain than they did in the first two races.
Ricciardo reflected after the race, “It was a race of two halves really. At the beginning I genuinely thought we had a chance to win. That stint was looking very competitive and I could see Valtteri was struggling.”
“I was at the tail end of the front pack and I could see everyone else in front of me – they were sliding and looked like they were struggling more. It was easy for me to stay there and I was looking after my tyres, so at that point I was thinking it could be on today, not only for a podium but for a win.”
“The safety car worked for me in that we jumped up to third but it wasn’t so good for our tyres and that’s where we lost a lot of ground. Even once we settled into a pace and the chaos settled we fell back and I was struggling with grip at the front and rear. We never really got that [soft] tyre working for us today.”
But the optimism was shortlived as Ricciardo’s teammate, Max Verstappen, suffered brake failure which resulted in him ending up in the wall and out of the race.
After the safety car period Ricciardo started to struggle with lack of grip, the soft tyres were not working on the RB13, and he was soon gobbled up by his rivals.
Ricciardo added, “That tyre was just not happening for us today! At the restart it never felt switched on, as we say. Struggling to get the restart, so Lewis got me… basically the whole first lap I was sliding. So that’s why I went back.”
“That tyre actually never really came good, we were on Massa’s pace but we know we were quicker than that. It was a strange turn of events from the beginning of the race,” concluded the Australian.
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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