“Questionable Program”: Ricciardo Blames Team Tactics for Q2 Exit

Daniel Ricciardo has questioned Visa Cash App RB’s decision making after a disappointing showing in Q2 that will see him start fifteenth. 

Ricciardo has been in good form recently, on an upwards trajectory, beating his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, in the last three races and scoring points in two. Despite being head of the midfield a few races ago, RB have dipped in performance falling behind MoneyGram Haas F1 Team, who qualified sixth on the grid with on of their cars on Saturday. 

Ricciardo felt the timing of his laps in Q2 were wrong and traffic in the final corner ahead of his final lap meant he was left with little chance of lifting himself from fifteenth, let alone getting the top ten shootout for the third time this season. The 34-year-old was quick in Q1 too, getting through to the second part of qualifying inside the top ten.

Speaking to F1TV, Ricciardo said: “Honestly, Q2 we need a talk about it and figure it out because at the time it didn’t make much sense to me, but you also can’t have drawn out conversations as time is of the essence. 

“Both runs I felt like our plan was well off and at the end we’ll struggling to get our lap in, so creating enemies at the last corner overtaking – I hate doing it, but I’m being told to do it so we get a lap.

“Still you start one and a half, two seconds behind Zhou [Guanyu], you’re never going to get a good quali lap in dirty air so you say best track but it was far from that. That was certainly one of our most not good sessions.”

Ricciardo knew that the team would struggle during the 2024 British Grand Prix and due to that there was no room for error, and he questioned both of his run plans in Q2. Following a debrief, Ricciardo will look ahead to the race tomorrow but his chance of points isn’t high with faster cars ahead of the Australian.

He continued: “Of course, we’ll address what we need to and then look ahead to the race tomorrow. What’s done is done now, we’re fifteenth and that is that but we’ll see, we’ve struggled this weekend. 

“The last three weekends haven’t been easy but this weekend as a team it wasn’t going to be easy so the frustration comes from that too, where we don’t have the luxury to not get it right and I felt like both runs in Q2 we were doing a very questionable program so far from optimised.

“I’m not saying we could’ve done a P8 or something but we didn’t give ourselves a chance today. So tomorrow we’ll see, who knows what the weather is going to do!”

Photo: Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool