30/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Yuki Tsunoda: "The team did a fantastic job today; the car was flying and I'm happy to finish in the points before the summer break.
"A huge well done to the entire team: the mechanics, people in Bicester and Faenza, and trackside engineers. It's been a long time since I scored points, and I've been struggling in the last few races, so I'm very happy now. We were slightly lucky with a couple of cars retiring in front of us, but I felt really comfortable during the race. The car went naturally forward, and I was just managing my tyres. At one point there was some rain, but fortunately, it stopped quite quickly, and I could keep up the pace and drive consistently. After the horrible day I had yesterday, I didn't want to take that feeling into the summer break, so I'm happy I could extract and maximise the car's performance. I feel I could give back to the team, apologise to them, and give them a little bit of positive energy going into the break. Now I'll rest as much as I can and prepare for the second half of the season."
Daniel Ricciardo: "Honestly, it was tough in traffic. Maybe a race with more clear air could've been better, but in general I'm not convinced we had great pace today. It felt like we never got the peak out of the tyres, and we couldn't generate enough grip in the second sector. When we were in clear air later in the race, I felt we were more competitive, but in traffic, it was definitely hard. The reality is, these were my first dry laps in this car on this track, and I don't know this car that well yet, so I still felt there was a little missing, but we'll figure it out. Many are now looking forward to a well-deserved holiday, but the situation is slightly different for me as the break is a good chance for me to keep working behind the scenes. After a few days off, I'll spend time in the gym and use my days training, to be able to further improve on my race fitness."
Jody Egginton (Technical Director): "Following on from the last race, where we feel we took a step forwards, we have also generally been more competitive, and to score a point here is a good reward for everybody's hard work and persistence. Yuki ran a strong race, making really good use of each of his tyre sets to keep his car in the top 10. The fight for points was on merit pretty much all race long, so he should be pleased. It was more difficult for Daniel, as he spent a good part of the race in traffic. We weren't able to get him into free air to put together a strong sequence of laps, as he was able to do in Hungary to good effect. It was unfortunate, however, his strong performance in the Sprint race yesterday highlights we are making progress. We still have work to do to get the car where we want it, but we have more updates coming, and everyone in Faenza, Bicester and Trackside is focused on pushing hard to develop the car and improve our competitiveness."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "We started the race with Yuki in P11 and Daniel in P19, so we decided to split the strategy between the two cars: Yuki started on the medium compound, and Daniel on the soft tyre. Yuki managed a fantastic start and ended up in P8, keeping his position for a very long time. I think some cars were staying out, postponing their pitstop, just waiting for more rain to come later in the race. Yuki was in P6 at one point, but of course, certain other cars were faster and could overtake us. In the end, Yuki finished P10 and scored one point for the team, which is very important. What is even more relevant is that the aero development is going in the right direction, and this is evidence of the fact that people in Bicester are doing a good job. As for Daniel, he started towards the back of the grid today as his lap time got deleted in qualifying on Friday, because of violating track limits in Turn 4. It's a shame as he showed great performance yesterday, being close to scoring a point in the Sprint race. Starting further back today was really difficult because it's really hard to overtake. We still miss some load on the car, but I'm convinced that when Daniel is more familiar with the car and tyres, he'll do a really good job. In general, the team did a very good job. We haven't scored a point in a long time, so we're very pleased and are looking forward to the second half of the season because I think we can still improve our performance."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa here.