Red Bull were caught on the back foot at the start of this season which in the end compromised their challenge for the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship title, for 2018 Daniel Ricciardo has warned that his team need to up the ante and hit the ground running sooner.
Statistics will show that before the Australian's victory at Round 9 in Baku, the team had only been on the podium four times and had five DNFs on their scorecard. Fingers were pointed at wind tunnel calibration problems.
Looking back on the season, Ricciardo said, "What we need to do for next year to have a chance is that we need to start the season stronger. That's where we lost a lot of our momentum this year. At the beginning of the season, we were too far behind Mercedes and Ferrari."
Ricciardo's contract with Red Bull lasts until the end of 2018, and the Aussie has admitted that he will wait until at least after the first pre-season tests before he commits to an extension with the energy drinks outfit.
Ricciardo added, "Unfortunately Mercedes has been really strong for the last four years. They have been the team to beat. We thought this year would be a chance for us to really challenge them. We challenged them some races but not enough to fight for the title."
"In the end, myself and Max [Verstappen] were fifth and sixth in the championship. We didn't come near to what we wanted," lamented Ricciardo who scored nine podiums, one of which was the victory in Baku, during the course of the season.
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