Bottas and Ricciardo complete demo runs in Budapest
Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo bewitched the public of the mesmerizing Budapest on the 1st of May. The duo’s runs presented the highlight of an intensive motorsport activity on the streets of the beautiful capital of Hungary.
In 2017, the Great Race was held for the fifth time in Budapest. This is regarded as one of the biggest non-racing motorsport activity of the world which aims to allow fans to race cars, trucks and drivers as close as it could never happen in a closed circuit.
Bottas flew from Russia to Hungary right after he secured his maiden race win in F1 in his 81th Grand Prix. The Finn arrived at 10 p.m. in Budapest. His day included a long press conference in the morning and two short demo runs in the W05. Bottas could gain experiences behind the wheel of the 2014-specification Mercedes, the car that signified the start of the Anglo-German team’s domination in the sport.
Asked what the most critical moment of the Sochi race was, Bottas replied: „The start and the safety car were the most critical” phases.
„Ferrari was performing very well ont he supersofts. I had a lock-up and my car vibrated especially in the left corners,” added the Finn.
He called his first triumph „unreal” and said that he felt himself more integrated inside the team after what he called his „best weekend so far” in his career.
Ricciardo didn’t fail to impress with his ever-smiling character after a rather woeful Russain GP. In the press conference, he declared the aim of his day in an ironical way. He wanted to spend more time in the cockpit than he did in Sochi the day before.
The Australian was sidelined by braking issues only with four laps into the race. He called its reason as a mistery which the group of Red Bull technicians cannot fully understand.
Asked how often he uses simulator to prepare himself for the real racing action, he replied: „There is the Red Bull simulator” which is not used for fun purposes. He said he does not use simulator in his free time as it is always useful to switch off and spend some time with other than racing cars in a championship which is pretty intensive anyway. However, he disclosed that his teen team-mate Max Verstappen carries his simulator to races to play video games over the race weekend.
Red Bull has been lagging behind in the pecking order behind Mercedes and Ferrari. That is despite to the fact that the new aerodynamic technical revamp was inspired by the Milton-Keynes team itself and McLaren. The energy drink-owned team does not only lack of pure engine power, but also of sheer downforce which has been its biggest strength over the past years. The squad is rumoured to suffer from correlation woes and is reported to work on a radical upgrade package.
„That will be the first big upgrade. We should be more competitive,” the Australian is quoted as saying.
Red Bull should make a jump and close in on the currently field-leading Mercedes and Ferrari, „if we can find a big chunk of performance. The goal is to win races, ”concluded Ricciardo.
