Ricci looking for Trident to climb Standings ‘fast’ after showing good potential in 2024

After five rounds of the 2024 season, Trident currently sit 10th in the Teams’ Standings, but their Team Manager Giacomo Ricci does not believe this represents their true performance.

The Italian outfit made a slow start to the campaign in Sakhir where they went without scoring but since then, they have taken points at each of the last four rounds.

That run of results includes a victory for Roman Stanek in the Melbourne Sprint Race, while Richard Verschoor achieved pole position last time out in Monte Carlo.

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So, as he sat down to reflect on his team’s start to the year, Ricci while pleased with the progress believes that the 30 points scored so far should be much more.

“I think in terms of potential we can be quite happy with how things are progressing,” said Ricci. “I have to say that for me the only round where we were not performing at the top level was Bahrain.

“But since then, I'd say in Jeddah we had a strong package and good potential, the same thing in Melbourne, Imola again we were competitive and the top one for me in terms of performance was Monte Carlo.

“We were able to secure pole position with Richard Verschoor in the first group and in the second group Roman Stanek was going for the overall pole position and then he crashed, and he was P6. So, the potential is absolutely there.

“What I don't like is we lost plenty of opportunities for different reasons, and our position it shouldn't be what it is on paper currently, let's put it this way. We should be up front and at the moment, we are at the back.”

Ricci did praise Stanek and Verschoor for their performances so far this year as well as the way they have worked together, calling it a “pleasure” to have them on board.

He also complimented the work of his engineers who have been crucial to the continuous improvement Trident have made with the new Formula 2 car this season.

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This makes the outcome of the Monte Carlo Feature Race all the more disappointing when an issue forced Verschoor to retire having held the lead early on.

“I am very proud also of our engineers and all the people that are involved in this project because they have been working very hard,” said Ricci. “At the same time, I have to say Monte Carlo was very painful.

“When Richard, after a great start, was leading the race by four seconds, he was faster than Isack Hadjar every lap, and everything was under control and once you are leading by four seconds in Monte Carlo, you also give a chance to the team and the pit crew to not take any risk during the pit stop.

“You can take some pressure from the mechanics’ shoulders. Everything was looking great and then suddenly the message from Richard when he opened the radio 'I'm breaking down' was so bad.

“It's almost indescribable what you are feeling in that moment because for us, it would have been something special, a win in Monte Carlo, a win in the Feature Race. I still cannot believe how we have been so unlucky in that case, but it's part of racing as we know.”

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Ricci believes his team will move on fast with Round 6 in Barcelona later this month kicking off a run of five race weekends in six weeks. He is hopeful that Trident can start scoring more points over that time.

“I think the most important point for us at the moment is to try to put the potential on paper into results, in order to find consistency, this is the goal,” added Ricci.

“Usually when you can score good points every weekend, you can climb the Standings quite fast, we absolutely now need to start that and then find the strength to move on after what happened in Monte Carlo.”