Ricciardo says Toro Rosso is not giving up on Chinese Grand Prix updates
Daniel Ricciardo says Toro Rosso is not giving up on the updates introduced in the Chinese Grand Prix despite conceding they did not perform as expected
Like most of the teams, the Faenza-based squad used the three-week break ahead of the Shanghai race to work on several updates that were introduced in the third round of the championship.
The team's performance, however, did not improve as much as it was hoped, and both Ricciardo and team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne struggled during the weekend.
The Australian qualified and finished in 17th, while the Frenchman was 16th in the race having started from the pitlane.
Ricciardo said in Bahrain on Thursday that the updates had not worked as expected, but insisted the team is not giving up on them yet.
"We definitely struggled a bit in China," Ricciardo told AUTOSPORT. "I guess because there was quite a big break quite a few teams had updates. We were one of them, but unfortunately they didn't work as well as we hoped, basically. That's in simple terms.
"It's not that we are going to give up on them. I think we'll find out in a few races why they didn't work as well as they should have. I think we will give them another crack this weekend and try to find a few ways to make them more effective.
"At least what we had in China didn't really work and we struggled. I struggled a bit, but Jean-Eric struggled more. I expect here to be better."
He said Toro Rosso is still pushing hard to have more upgrades for its cars for the start of the European season and for next month's test at Mugello.
"Obviously the team is pushing very hard for the first European race in Barcelona," he said. "I believe we are pushing to get some more stuff in Mugello for the test. It's a good opportunity to test new bits and pieces. In Barcelona we'll have a bit more. The team is definitely pushing hard."
Ricciardo said he was not worried about his team's drop in performance, and was confident that Toro Rosso will recover.
"It's still very close, but we definitely want to say in touch. We were on the limit in China, or falling back to the rest, but I'm not fearful that's how it will be in the end."
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