Ricciardo plays down 'B' car hopes

May 1 - Daniel Ricciardo has played down hopes that Red Bull's early season struggles might soon be over.

The former champions have admitted that the current performance deficit is due to both the chassis and Renault engine.

So at Milton Keynes, Red Bull is busily working on what is said to be a 'B' spec chassis, set to debut in Barcelona in a fortnight.

"I think the top teams with more resources can obviously improve the most," said Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel ahead of the first European race of the season.

There are rumours of a 1 second per lap boost for the new Red Bull in the simulator, but Ricciardo said he isn't getting excited.

"I think I'll believe it when I'm driving it," said the Australian.

Indeed, it seems likely that the Spanish grand prix - and even the Montreal event two races later - will not be the silver bullet for Red Bull.

Germany's Sport Bild reports that a scheduled big upgrade for the Renault power unit will now not be ready for Canada, for reliability reasons.

The report said the debut has been postponed "indefinitely".

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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