Daniel Ricciardo says a post-qualifying inspection in Jeddah revealed an issue with his VCARB 01 that he was unfortunately forced to carry into Saturday’s race and which undermined his performance.
On Friday, Ricciardo was able to make the Q2 cut but that was as good as it got for the Aussie who was left stranded in P14 while teammate Yuki Tsunoda made it into the top-ten shootout which he finished ninth.
Having been unable to extract the expected pace from his RB machine, Riccardo’s frustrations after the Friday evening session were evident, with his underperformance fueling speculation of a technical gremlin.
And those suspicions were apparently confirmed after qualifying following a thorough inspection of Ricciardo’s mount.
However, whatever problem was hiding under the hood of his machine could not be changed ahead of Saturday evening’s race due to Parc Fermé regulations.
Launching his race from P14, a slow pitstop pushed Ricciardo down to last, where he found himself running – and stuck – behind the Sauber of Valtteri Bottas.
He eventually gained the upper hand over the Finn at the race’s mid-way point but lingering thereafter at the tail end of a six-car DRS train, there was no room for progress. The Aussie eventually crossed the checkered flag 16th, suffering a late spin on the penultimate lap of the race.
“It was always going to be an uphill battle. We simply don’t have everything functioning at 100 percent,” Ricciardo explained.
“We see a few flaws, honestly, with the car, so we’ve got to get that fixed for the next one.
©RB
“I think the race itself, Safety Car, everyone pitted, and we had a really slow stop. And then we’re in that train.
“At the end, then just to make sure I made my mistake as well, I had a spin at Turn 1, so… I didn’t want the team to feel left out!
“Probably a little bit of frustration, maybe on my part,” he concluded as he justified his late mishap.
While it was a weekend to forget for Ricciardo, the eight-time Grand Prix winner perceived a silver lining of sorts that left him optimistic for his upcoming home race in Melbourne next week.
“The reason I’m staying optimistic is because I know that we had some things wrong,” he explained.
“With a good car and everything sorted, I know we can do a lot better. So painful three days, but I don’t want it to take any confidence out of us.
©RB
“Hasn’t been the start that we wanted, but it’s Race 2, and Melbourne’s next. So yeah, big push for everyone to get it right and we’ll have a good weekend.
“I’ll obviously put this weekend behind I think, just push the team hard,” he added.
“Already last night I stayed quite late to try and help everyone find the issues. Just up to me now to keep on ’em.
“I know they want it as bad as I do.
“So, make sure that we have a good package into Melbourne. My season will start there, and kick some ass.”
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Ricciardo says issues found with RB car after Jeddah qualifying F1i.com.
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