If any team was able to break away from the back of the field in the current Formula 1 season and close the gap to the top 5, then it was clearly the Racing Bulls. In recent weeks, the small Red Bull team has not only made life increasingly difficult for Aston Martin, but has also been able to compete with Mercedes – at least at times.
However, one problem ran like a common thread through the season so far. Virtually always it was just one rider from the team fighting for a strong result, while the other was caught in midfield traffic or generally unable to keep up with his teammate’s pace.
But at least in qualifying at Imola this series came to an end. For the first time in 2024, both Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda made it into Q3 at the Emilia-Romagna GP. Starting positions 7 and 9 ensure double hopes of points. But how realistic is this?
Yuki Tsunoda with disappointment after Q2 sensation: Why suddenly slow down?
There was still a clear gap within the team, although not so much in Q3. In Q1 and Q2, Yuki Tsunoda for a furor. In the second qualifying segment, his first outing was enough for him to take P3 in the session standings. A seemingly sensational result. “Getting through Q2 with one set was pretty positive and overall we’re having a pretty solid weekend,” explained Tsunoda.
But his joy over the strong Q2 result was also mixed with disappointment that he was unable to continue this unexpected high in the crucial qualifying segment. On the contrary: In Q3 his lap was even a tenth of a second slower than in the previous section, even though this time he had two soft tires available and not just one.
“To be honest, I expected more from Q3. But I didn’t get everything together,” he said angrily. A small mistake in Turn 6 probably cost him valuable fractions of a second. The slightly weaker lap somewhat glossed over his teammate’s performance. Because Daniel Ricciardo made his first Q3 entry in a ‘real’ qualifying session in 2024 [die bisherigen kamen alle nur im Sprint-Qualifying]but the distance to the Japanese was noticeably large at times.
Daniel Ricciardo is again just playing second fiddle: Where is the lap time?
The Formula 1 veteran didn’t deny that either. He noticed that Tsunoda was getting along better with the car from the start of the first practice session, while Ricciardo still had a lot of catching up to do. Ricciardo located the deficit in one section in particular: Sector 1. “I had quite a few problems in the first sector. We made some progress, but I lost a lot there on my lap,” he explained.
On the rest of the lap he was on equal terms with Tsunoda. But in modern Formula 1, a gap of three tenths is already a world, especially when the faster driver – like in Q2 for the Racing Bulls – only needs one set of tires for this time.