Daniel Ricciardo is all set to return to the Formula 1 grid in Hungaroring for the upcoming Hungarian GP. He will be replacing Dutch driver Nyck De Vries, who was relieved from his duties for the AlphaTauri F1 team. This came in after an array of disappointing results for the young gun in his rookie season. The former Formula E and Formula 2 championship had a horrendous start to his F1 career, after being dropped this early into the season.
Not only did he go point-less in all the races he entered, he was significantly slower than teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Now, Ricciardo is all set to replace him on the team. The fans and F1 juggernaut have been all goofy about his return, and the Australian is expectedly cheery about it as well. However, when he takes the wheel of the car this week, Ricciardo will have to confront and improve the brutal realities of the AT-04.
The Honey Badger loves a car that is strong under braking and corner entry. That is the reason he is seen pulling off exceptional overtakes into the braking zone. However, the McLaren he drove for two years did not provide him with this amenity, and thus his evident fall was visible. “If you have trouble exiting corners, it’s usually a product of what happened at the corner and put you in a position where you have, shall we say, trouble exiting corners,” said Ricciardo about the McLaren last year.
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AlphaTauri poses similar issues to Daniel Ricciardo
His worst nightmare at McLaren might just haunt Ricciardo at AlphaTauri as well. The biggest challenge that Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck De Vries faced this season so far is the late corner entry limitation posed by the AT-04. AlphaTauri’s head of technology Jonathan Eddolls talked thoroughly about this problem ahead of the Daniel Ricciardo signing discussions, considering the Aussie’s issue with a similar car.
Currently, the team stands at the rear end of the championship standing but they are making strides in positive directions. “The late corner entry, let’s say the instability of the rear, was the biggest weak point we worked on. We’ve improved that, but it’s still a weakness, I’d say,” said Eddolls as reported by Motorsports-Total.
“Once we’ve improved the rear load in the entry phase, we have more rear load and therefore more stability. And we’re working on bringing that further into the corner to allow the driver to apply more pressure in the late turn-in apex of the corner,” added the technical director.
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