Red Bull will investigate a brake failure that saw Daniel Ricciardo’s Russian Grand Prix come to a premature end after a fire broke out on his RB13.
The Australian was occupying seventh spot when smoke began to put from the right rear wheel of his car, before losing the brakes altogether.
This is the second time in as many races that the team has suffered a brake issue following a failure for Max Verstappen during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ricciardo is unsure if an aborted start and a stint behind the Safety Car early in the race triggered the problem.
“After the safety car I looked in my mirror to see where the Force India was and I noticed that the right rear brake was on fire, I reported it to the team and they told me to bring the car back to the pits slowly,” said Ricciardo.
“Unfortunately the issue could not be fixed and I had to retire from the race.
“It was early in the race so I don’t know how much the safety car and two starts impacted us but the team will obviously investigate that.
“It’s frustrating, on a Sunday you just build up for the race and try to store up your adrenaline to use at 3pm but today it was over very quickly and unfortunately I didn’t get as much of a fight as I would have liked.”
Early indications have suggested the issue is different to that suffered by Verstappen in Bahrain, according to Red Bull boss Christian Horner.
“It was a real disappointment to lose Daniel early in the race with a right rear brake issue, straight after the safety car restart,” said Horner.
“We need to understand exactly what the cause of failure was; the outcome was similar to that which happened with Max in Bahrain but it looks like a different issue, so that needs thorough exploration.”
Red Bull is set to deploy a major chassis upgrade when the championship reconvenes at the Spanish Grand Prix (May 12-14) as it bids claw back the deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari.
Lying sixth in the championship, Ricciardo remains hopeful the updates will prove successful having slipped 13 points behind team-mate Verstappen.
“We don’t know how much the new package will give us until we get it on track in a few weeks but we are hoping Barcelona is the first step to getting closer to the leaders,” added Ricciardo.
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