In his pursuit of catching up to teammate Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo is refusing to let his F1 career with RB consume his thoughts.
In 2024, Tsunoda has largely dominated Ricciardo in both qualifying and the race.
In the head-to-head in qualifying, the Japanese driver leads 7-1, and on race day, Tsunoda leads 6-1.
Despite his difficulties, Ricciardo doesn’t seem to be in any danger of losing motivation for the upcoming season.
Peter Bayer, the CEO of RB, has stated that he is satisfied with both drivers and that he hopes Tsunoda and Ricciardo will remain until 2025.
Although Bayer is pleased with Ricciardo, the former McLaren driver is eager to get better, acknowledging that he is annoyed by the performance difference with Tsunoda thus far this season.
Regarding his future, Ricciardo admitted, “I haven’t really given it too much [thought].” “Well, that’s wonderful to hear. Yes, that would be fantastic. However, I want to continuously keep improving.
“I believe that today, perhaps we did discover something that, well, explains why I lost a little here and there. However, given that this is Formula One, there will probably always be some imperfection.
I’m simply not content with these gaps, that’s all. That’s probably what’s a little annoying me. Of course, the team has performed admirably.
Ricciardo is still optimistic about his prospects of making a change.
Thanking the RB team for their “really supportive” behaviour, the Australian insisted he wouldn’t become “too comfortable” either.
Ricciardo continued, “They’ve been really, really supportive.” “They certainly know I’m capable of doing that, but it’s been a little harder to do it consistently this year.
And that’s actually the main thing I’m concentrating on right now rather than getting too comfortable or enthusiastic about the future.
That’s what I want to be doing. Either my automobile or myself, I just want to be performing better. And I said, “It wasn’t good enough, but I didn’t feel too bad today.”