RB admit mistake in rushing through "belly flop" upgrade for Spanish GP

RB have admitted the upgrade package they introduced at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix was “a bit of a belly flop”.

The Faenza outfit made changes to the floor body, sidepods, engine cover, rear wing and beam wing of their VCARB 01 in Barcelona, but struggled for competitiveness all weekend. Daniel Ricciardo and teammate Yuki Tsunoda failed to score a point after being knocked out in the first part of qualifying.

RB CEO Peter Bayer has conceded the team made an error in rushing through the upgrade package - which was originally scheduled to be rolled out at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix - one race early.

“We kept pushing at the factory to bring the upgrade again, a race early. Originally, the plan was to bring it here,” Bayer explained.

“But as we've taken the risk of bringing a big upgrade to Miami, we thought that it's better to bring them to Barcelona. We were pushing the team very hard.

“We had perhaps not done all the analysis we should have or needed, in fact, to have all the bits and pieces ready. It was a bit of a belly flop, perhaps, but we've learned from it. We took it back to the factory.”

Tsunoda could only qualify 14th for Saturday’s sprint race in Austria, while Ricciardo will line up 16th after being eliminated in SQ1.

Racing director Alan Permane explained RB had carried out experiments with both cars on Friday following the team’s difficult weekend last time out.

“A tough Sprint Qualifying session for us for different reasons across both sides of the garage. We’ve done some experimentation after our difficult weekend in Barcelona, and it was very good to do because we learnt a lot,” he said.

“Daniel had a lot of changes for the Sprint Qualifying session and it’s always difficult with one set of tyres. We knew needing to nail that first lap was going to be difficult to get the best out of the car.

“However, it’s a long weekend and we’ll learn more in the Sprint tomorrow, and then we have another shot at Qualifying in the evening.

“Yuki unfortunately went off on his second lap in SQ1 and damaged his floor. Without that, I’m very sure he would’ve been higher up. We’ll repair his floor overnight and make sure he’s got a perfect car for [Saturday].”