Ricciardo: Renault doing too much, being too clever

Daniel Ricciardo wants a stripped-back approach at Renault after holding open talks with his engineering team following a tricky start to the season.

After making his headline-grabbing switch to Renault over the winter, Ricciardo concedes he’s struggled to adapt to the French manufacturer which has resulted in two non-finishes from the opening two rounds.

The day after the Bahrain Grand Prix, when both he and teammate Nico Hulkenberg suffered separate engine failures, Ricciardo cleared the air with his engineers before taking part in the opening day of the first in-season test in Sakhir and finding some breakthroughs.

Ricciardo has revealed the team accepts it is “trying to do too much” and will change its operations to a simpler way of working so he can find a comfortable feeling with the Renault F1 car.

“One thing we’ve also assessed is maybe we are trying to do too much over the course of a weekend,” Ricciardo said. “We got the chance to analyse on the Monday after Bahrain. Sat down with the engineers and had a debrief in a bit of peace and quiet in our own environment.

“We established that maybe we are currently trying to do too much. Where I am trying to settle in and also my engineers are trying to work with me. Probably all of us are trying to be too clever.

“You are always trying to find the limits. But for now we just need to keep a more basic approach and just do what we can, do it well, and then probably not look for that extra one percent at the moment.

“There is probably more time from just being comfortable and working well together. I know that once I start getting really comfortable with the car, that will reflect and that will go on to my engineers and then they will start to have more confidence.”

Ricciardo feels with less pressure on his Renault squad it gives them the time and space to find improvements over the course of his first year at the team. Ricciardo switched to Renault with the belief the French manufacturer could provide him with a championship-contending package having lost faith at Red Bull.

“I already feel pretty good with the team around me,” he said. “We just sat down now for the last hour chatting over some stuff from Bahrain and also this weekend. There is good feeling with it, so I know it is going to come.

“That is why I’m not frustrated yet because I know that definitely things are going to come good. I want to get there as soon as possible but at the moment we are not fighting for a championship.

“So there is time for us to make these mistakes to become better.”