Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo said that windy conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya were to blame for his accident in Friday’s first free practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix.
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Ricciardo went off into the gravel at turn 4, and was unable to stop the car before it made crunching contact with the wall. The RB14 suffered front wing and left suspension damage as a result.
“The mistake in to Turn 4 this morning was a costly one,” the Australian admitted later. “I missed the final hour of the session because of it.
“Tail winds are a big thing in F1,” he explained. “In any corners with a tail wind you lose a lot of rear grip. Turn 4 is a bad corner to have a tail wind and it caught me and a few others out.
“Of course you don’t want to crash but if I’m trying to find a silver lining, then FP1 is probably the best time to do it.”
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The car was swiftly returned to the Red Bull garage, enabling the mechanics to get a jump start on fixing the damage over lunch. Ricciardo was able to take part in the afternoon session without further delay.
“FP2 is the one where you do your race and qualifying simulations,” noted Ricciardo. “We got our heads down and put the laps in this afternoon
“[That] was important with the updates to the car,” he added. “There are quite a few aerodynamicists here today so we needed the laps to give them as much feedback as possible.”
Ricciardo went on to set the second fastest time of the afternoon, just 0.133s behind the time of Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes. Notably, all the fatest laps were set early in the session and drivers struggled to improve when they switched to supersoft tyres mid-session.
“On the soft tyre we were quite fast,” he continued. “[But] we didn’t really get the supersoft working, which I don’t think many people did. It looks like it will be a tricky tyre this weekend.”
After that, teams settled down to long distance race simulation runs.
“At the end with high fuel I think we were okay,” reported Ricciardo. “But I’m sure we can still be better. We have found some pace, there is still a bit more to find, but overall a pretty good end to a Friday.”
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