Ricciardo joined his {old} staff on mortgage from Pink Bull from Budapest onwards to exchange the ousted Nyck de Vries.
One space de Vries struggled with within the AT04 was its nook entry weak point, a difficulty that additionally harm Ricciardo throughout his troubled time at McLaren.
Ricciardo mentioned he rapidly felt at residence within the automobile following his eight-month sabbatical, as he out-qualified team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and completed thirteenth regardless of being punted off by Zhou Guanyu in the beginning.
However in keeping with AlphaTauri’s head of trackside engineering Jonathan Eddolls, the traits of the twisty Hungaroring mixed with the elevated temperatures have masked a number of the automobile’s ill-handling traits, with the jury nonetheless out on how Ricciardo will get alongside along with his new automobile.
When requested by Autosport earlier than the race if AlphaTauri’s nook entry weak point was nonetheless prevalent, Eddolls replied:
“Truly, that hasn’t been one of many largest limitations thus far of the weekend, as a result of the tyre grip and the downforce type of masked it. It hasn’t been such a difficulty right here.
“Curiously, right here we’re coming to most downforce, very mushy tyres. Additionally, right here you possibly can run them at very low pressures, a number of the lowest of the season due to the circuit traits.”
However in keeping with Eddolls, fixing its nook entry weak point remains to be a piece in progress regardless of a number of the staff’s latest upgrades, which embody a tweaked flooring and new entrance and rear wings.
“The updates are geared toward addressing that,” mentioned Eddolls. “I would not say we mounted it, for positive, regardless that [the drivers] have not been commenting and I feel we perceive why, so it continues to be the trail that we need to take.”
Daniel Ricciardo, AlphaTauri AT04
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
He added that 34-year-old Ricciardo hadn’t reported any important weak point or shortcoming of how his automobile behaves, however simply confirmed the staff’s want so as to add extra aerodynamic load to the automobile so as to achieve a foothold within the midfield.
“The Positive is the suggestions we have had from Daniel thus far does affirm our type of basic route, we want extra downforce.
“He mentioned, like everyone knows, we had been simply missing a bit of little bit of downforce, relative to the highest groups.
“However thus far, he is not mentioned particular large areas of weak point, as we perceive that the automobile does not have any large issues, it is simply we want a bit extra load to be aggressive.”
Ricciardo’s early second pitstop not solely allowed him to undercut a number of drivers and salvage thirteenth after being caught in site visitors, however he defined the temporary spell in clear air additionally give him far more details about what the automobile is able to.
“Yeah, that was actually necessary,” Ricciardo mentioned. “I feel it could have been a way more in all probability discouraging race and possibly nonetheless lots of inquiries to be answered.
“Simply having the tempo, having the clear air and making a couple of errors, studying from these, figuring out what the automobile likes, what it does not. I feel I discovered rather a lot from the race.”
Extra reporting by Matt Kew