Developments bring satisfaction to Red Bull

The new package brought by Red Bull at the Spanish GP seems to offer promising performances. Daniel Ricciardo was closest to Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), author of the best time of the day in EL2 in Barcelona, ​​finishing a tenth behind.

The Australian recovered well after a first session tarnished by going off the track after half an hour.

“The EL2s were clearly better, confirmed the winner of the Chinese GP. I made a small mistake this morning which caused me to lose an hour of testing. We are still looking to optimize the developments on the car, but we do not seem very far from what we are trying to achieve. I think there is still potential to be gained and that is encouraging. »

Daniel Ricciardo, on the other hand, was surprised by the lack of competitiveness of the super soft tires compared to the soft and medium tires provided by Pirelli.

“The super softs are slow, we are faster with the softs. The mids also offer quite a bit of performance. This suggests multiple choices in terms of strategies for the race”, warned the Australian.

His teammate Max Verstappen was also on the pace since he finished the day with the third fastest time, a tenth behind the first RB14.

“The developments work well on the car, it has a behavior that I like well, recognized the Dutchman. It's still difficult to know our level of competitiveness, but it's in any case a good starting point, especially with our pace displayed on the long relays. We only worked with the new package for one day and will get more potential out of it tomorrow. »

The Dutchman was also surprised by the performance provided by the red sidewall tires.

“Super soft tires don't work very well. I rode well with it, but that was because I ended my stint on soft tires prematurely given that I was already satisfied with the behavior of my car », he explained.

Last year, Red Bull took the podium thanks to Daniel Ricciardo's third place. Max Verstappen had retired after a collision.