Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda wondering what might have been at F1 Emilia Romagna GP

Following Friday’s pair of practice sessions, the team at Visa Cash App RB F1 Team believed getting both Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda into the third segment of Saturday’s qualifying session was an achievable goal. They did just that on Saturday, as both drivers started the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix inside the top ten. That meant a new goal: Double points for the team.

However, that dream ended almost immediately after the lights went out at Imola.

Both Tsunoda and Ricciardo got off to poor starts, which cost them position on the track, forced a change in strategy and ultimately, their dreams of a double-points result in VCARB’s home race. Tsunoda finished tenth after starting seventh, securing a point for the team. As for Ricciardo, despite starting up in ninth he came across the line P13, outside the points.

“Our start compromised our race,” said Tsunoda to F1.com following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. “We didn’t plan to pit that early, but we lost a couple of positions at the start so we had to. The start was definitely the main part that we have to fix.”

“I don’t think anything went wrong with the start procedure, I felt like I did everything right, but unfortunately, losing that starting place did cost us the points in the race. We’ll figure it out as a team, just because there’s a bit of a lack of consistency there and we immediately dropped out of the points,” said Ricciardo in the team’s post-race report. “Then during the race we were in a train of cars, and being there with the dirty air, it’s a weakness at the moment for us. We’ll keep looking at it. I think with the clean air our pace was okay and I was doing decent times, but as soon as we got in some traffic we felt like we struggled more.”

Jody Egginton, the team’s Technical Director, hailed the point from Tsunoda but admitted to some “frustration” at the overall result.

“It’s nice to come away with a point from Yuki but there’s also a slight feeling of frustration as we had the pace to possibly be further up the road at the end of the race,” said Egginton. “However, we lost places with both cars off the start and that pushed us into making an earlier-than-planned stop to try and recover, meaning we had to go longer than we wanted on the second set of [tires]. That opened up the opportunity for [Lance] Stroll to go long with less traffic and he took good advantage of this.”

Team Principal Laurent Mekies reflected on the “positives” of the weekend, before offering a preview of the Monaco Grand Prix.

“Even if today’s race leaves us a little bit disappointed, as a better start from both Yuki and Daniel would have probably created a better scenario for us, a point is a point and there are many positives to take away from the weekend,” said Mekies. “Our qualifying performance proves that the upgrades we implemented in Miami are definitely bringing us performance to go on fighting for sixth position in the Championship.

“And now we carry that momentum forward to face the unique challenge of Monaco. Daniel has been on the podium there no fewer than four times, including a win, and Yuki is currently in great form, so we will be pushing for another strong performance from the whole team.”