Red Bull deficit more car than engine - Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo attributes the deficit in pace to Mercedes and Ferrari as being more down to the Red Bull chassis than Renault's power unit this season.

Red Bull was expected to challenge at the front in 2017 as new aerodynamic regulations play to the team's traditional strength. However, after opting for a low-drag approach, Red Bull has been over a second slower than its two main rivals in qualifying at two of the first three races. While the Renault power unit is still lacking performance compared to Ferrari and Mercedes, Ricciardo believes the majority of the gap comes from the chassis itself.

"I feel like we're kind of where we've always been in terms of I feel the gap, the deficit it's kind of where it's been and also the reliability is a bit of a question mark but the others have had their issues as well," Ricciardo said. "Ferrari have had some things going on in practice and so on, and they won the race [in Bahrain].

"Right now, if I would say engine or car, I'll probably say the car for now. I know what we can do with a good chassis and the gains on power, we can still put ourselves in the fight, so I think the engine deficit is pretty much what it always has been, for sure I'd love more, but we're not may be not as strong as we should be from the chassis point of view."

The lack of overall downforce has made it harder for Red Bull to switch its tires on compared to the leading two teams, but both Ricciardo and team-mate Max Verstappen were able to follow the leaders closely at the start of the last race in Bahrain as Valtteri Bottas struggled with high tire pressures.

The Australian acknowledges the early performance in Bahrain highlights what a big part tires play in overall performance, but says the downforce levels are the catalyst for the problems.

"For sure I think if everyone is getting their tires in the right window then I think it's downforce at the moment our main answer, but it kind of showed that when we were pretty happy with the tires and Mercedes maybe weren't it can really make a big difference. Like an 0.8s of lap time will become nothing if they're not as happy as we are.

"For sure it's sensitive, they can make a big difference, but it's obviously I'm sure at some point we're all going to figure out the best thing for the tires and you'll still go back to trying to bolt more downforce."