Fine margins cost Ricciardo as RB continue to learn upgrade

Ricciardo will line up for the Sprint in 16th after missing the cut for the second segment of the session by just 0.024s.

It comes after RB spent the only hour of practice all weekend working to understand where it went wrong with the upgrade package it introduced in Spain.

That saw Ricciardo and Tsunoda running different specification parts in an attempt to expedite that process.

As a consequence, the Australian was less than impressed with his car set-up in Sprint Qualifying.

“The first lap was pretty horrific,” he claimed.

“We changed a lot from FP1, so I feel like, obviously on a Sprint, it’s hard to get it right, but we changed quite a lot.

“I felt like the first lap we were still quite a long way off in terms of then the things we can change, front wing and this and that. So we came back to the pits, changed what we could.

“The second lap was definitely better, but we still need to fine tune it.”

Ricciardo mustered a 1:06.890s on his first lap, improving more than three-tenths with his second attempt.

However, it was not enough to progress to SQ2 as a late lap from Pierre Gasly bumped the Australian from the bubble in 15th into the elimination zone.

Starting deep in the pack, and with points paid out only to eighth in the Sprint, the focus is to gather more data on the upgrade package ahead of qualifying later in the day, and then Sunday’s race.

“Starting where we are is tricky to get obviously top eight, but try and use it as a little bit more understanding of the car,” Ricciardo reasoned.

“Then obviously we can change [the car] after the Sprint for the next quali.

“I do think we’ve made the right changes,” he added.

“What we’ve put on the car, I think, is the right thing, but we just need to now balance it better.

“We’ll get a chance to do that before the main quali tomorrow, so for that I’ll try and stay a bit optimistic.”

The Sprint in Austria begins at noon local time (20:00 AEST).