Daniel Ricciardo says it is wrong to expect miracles from Red Bull's new upgrade package which will be introduced at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.
Red Bull has made a slow start to 2017, languishing well behind Mercedes and Ferrari, scoring just one podium in China courtesy of Max Verstappen and failing to challenge for race wins at any of the opening four flyaway races. Despite bringing a significant upgrade to Barcelona this weekend, Ricciardo has ruled out a potential win on Sunday and believes simply closing the gap to Formula One's top teams, not overtaking them, would be a realistic aim for the moment.
"We still have to expect to be where we are,'' Ricciardo said. "Hopefully closer but I don't think we can expect to come out and win. We want to, would like to, but we can't really expect it because, look, even if the update gives us a second we know that Mercedes and Ferrari are not going to come here with nothing, so hopefully the target is to at least close the gap and then let's see. But sure we want to win but we should not expect it before we have driven the car.''
Red Bull's strongest outing of 2017 came in changeable conditions in China, and with rain a possibility this weekend, Ricciardo believes it would bring the team naturally closer to the front.
"If it is wet I think we have a good package in the wet generally so we would be closer in those conditions,'' Ricciardo added.
Many of the drivers have been critical of Pirelli's decision to bring the hardest of all of its four tyre compounds to this weekend's race. Ricciardo has echoed the thoughts of his fellow drivers and hopes alterations are made for future races, in particular, at Silverstone, which has traditionally ran the hard tyre.
"They brought it here but I don't think we are going to race it. I'd be very very surprised if someone actually wanted to race the hard tyre, so from that side, knowing that none of us will want to race it, we probably could have come with the steps softer so that we actually think about using the harder compound. At the moment I doubt that anyone is thinking about using the hard.
"I believe that they already had to allocate these tyres before the season for the first five races, and now it changes. Now that we can give them a bit more feedback that we have raced and they can see, to their defense now they can readjust. I can't think of where...maybe Silverstone they are bringing the hard, but I think we could still get by with the medium no problem. I don't know if it is that, or if they are worried too run soft tyres on the high speed circuits, maybe that is part of it. But even the softs are not that soft so they are okay.''