Ricciardo: Second half of 2019 will be better

Daniel Ricciardo admits the summer break will be welcomed by Renault as he targets a stronger showing in the second half of 2019.

Renault came into the season hoping to build on their P4 finish in the 2018 Constructors’ Championship, but a mixture of poor reliability, driver errors and at times a general lack of pace has left them P6, 43 points behind McLaren.

Ricciardo signed a bumper two-year deal to join Renault from Red Bull ahead of the 2019 season, but things haven’t exactly gone to plan – though he targets an upturn in form once Formula 1 awakens again.

“I don’t want to say it negatively, but it is nice to reset for everyone, and sometimes you need to step away for a bit to actually review things,” Ricciardo said via Crash.net following qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“Your kind of go, go, go, especially on back-to-back weekends, you don’t really put yourself from a distance and say what can I do better, what can the team do better? Also for me personally to assess the first 6 months with the new team.

“I had, I don’t want to say expectations, but scenarios in my head at the start of the year how things would go.

“Now I can assess where it is, and try to understand also what I can do better within myself and within the team to keep everything going, and not let days like this [exiting in Q1 in Hungary] emotionally make me kind of do things that are not positive.

“The summer break will be good for us. I’m confident the second half will be better. We are just going to stay above water now and keep everyone’s spirits high. I know that we will get there.”

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