The evolved Renault engine is worth two tenths and a ten-place penalty for Ricciardo
Williams and Red Bull will not approach Sunday's race in Brazil under the best conditions: Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo have each received a grid penalty, of three and ten places respectively. The Australian has also posted faster lap times than his teammate thanks to his latest engine upgrades.
No one, not even a top-tier motorsport driver, is immune to a lapse in attention. Such a mishap occurred this Friday during free practice for Valtteri Bottas: the Finn overtook a car under a red flag during the second session. The penalty follows quite logically: he will start with a three-place grid penalty.
Daniel Ricciardo, on the other hand, will start with a much heavier disadvantage: ten grid penalties. The Australian’s sanction was nevertheless expected: Red Bull chose to test the upgraded Renault engine, which meant exceeding the quota of Power Units allowed per season.
Will the game be worth the candle? For now, thanks to its engine developments, Daniel Ricciardo has shown himself to be about two-tenths faster than his teammate Daniil Kvyat on the Interlagos circuit. The new engine doesn’t seem much more powerful at the moment, but we’ve done a lot of laps, and Renault will certainly be able to optimize it tomorrow. For now, it seems very similar to the old one. The positive thing is that it worked as expected and without issues, the Australian driver said on the subject.
