Daniel Ricciardo says he needs to improve his qualifying: Would Williams then still have been beatable for AlphaTauri?
Would AlphaTauri still have overtaken Williams in the Constructors’ Championship if Daniel Ricciardo had been better in qualifying? The Australian, who took over from the hapless Nyck de Vries in the middle of the season, but had to take a break himself shortly afterwards due to a hand injury, suggests this
When Ricciardo joined the team in Faenza in Hungary, AlphaTauri were in last place: they had scored just three points by then, but after a series of late updates, they fought their way past Haas and Alfa Romeo to eighth place.
However, they were no longer able to attack Williams: The team ended up three points adrift, but Ricciardo says he could well have scored more with a better qualifying session.
After all, he had only scored points in Mexico, where he started fourth and finished seventh. By comparison, team-mate Yuki Tsunoda finished in the points four times on Sunday in the same period, plus in the sprint in Brazil.
“When I look back at Brazil and Abu Dhabi, qualifying was the Achilles heel,” admits Ricciardo. “And I obviously take some responsibility for that because I perhaps didn’t put together the best lap.” Ricciardo started 17th in Brazil and 15th in Abu Dhabi.
The race pace in Brazil, on the other hand, was not bad, even if this was irrelevant due to the early lap deficit he had after repairing his rear wing. “I think we could have finished well in the points,” he says. And there could also have been points in Abu Dhabi if he had started further forward, he believes.
In the season finale, the AlphaTauri driver finished eleventh outside the points.
“It’s all subjunctive, but the pace is there,” he says. “It’s just a matter of us sorting out the pace over one lap, apart from Mexico.”
However, it should be noted that the pure qualifying duel against Yuki Tsunoda did not look that bad: Ricciardo was ahead three times, Tsunoda just once more. If you add the results of the sprint shootout, where Ricciardo won 2:1, the duel is evenly poised
In the end, however, the Japanese driver scored the most points for the team, which Ricciardo says is on the right track. The latest updates have worked and he and Tsunoda have been pushing each other.
“So there’s a lot for the team to look forward to next year,” he says. “Obviously seventh place would have been nice, but a few races ago we were talking about not finishing tenth. So seventh place was a kind of bonus. And that gives us a bit more to fight for next year. “
