04/05/2024
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo: "I feel really good about today, I have some good confidence in the car and the second row is awesome!
"The team brought updates to the last few races, changed my chassis at the previous race in China, and brought a new floor here in Miami. Things look like they're turning around and I'm very proud of what the team and myself did today. We had a good session starting from SQ1, even if I made a mistake in the first lap, so we were putting ourselves under a bit of pressure. Then I found a good lap and we started to build up from SQ2. I'm a bit surprised to be P4 with my lap because I expected to be a lot quicker with the soft compound. Instead, the soft tyres didn't give much more compared to the mediums. I touched the wall twice; I told the team that I was definitely trying to get everything out of it. Let's see what happens in the Sprint race, but it's a lot nicer to be in the front rows. This can definitely help stay cleaner in the first phase of the race, if not involved in a bit of chaos. I'd love to get some points tomorrow."
Yuki Tsunoda: "SQ1 was good, so the car was there but in the end, we weren't able to maximise the performance. We tried with one push but it didn't work out. I also wasn't able to put it all together. In hindsight, two pushes maybe would've worked better for us but the pace the car showed does give me confidence for the remainder of the weekend."
Alan Permane (Racing Director): "Obviously, a tremendous session for us and Daniel; really, really happy. Straightaway from the first laps this morning the car was performing well. We have an upgraded floor here and it's performing as expected, so that's given Daniel the confidence to push the car hard at this tricky track, with walls all around, and the result is fourth on the grid for tomorrow's Sprint race. We need to have a deep look and understand what happened to Yuki in SQ2 because he's been there, happy all day, and confident in the car. After his runs in SQ1, he was super confident and said he wanted to go for one timed lap in SQ2, and that was the right thing to do. It didn't come together, but we'll dig deeply into everything to try and understand it. It's early in the weekend, so we have plenty more opportunities to get him up the front as well."
Check out our Friday gallery from Miami here.