Daniel Ricciardo was once again frustrated after another disappointing performance from himself and Red Bull at the Canadian Grand Prix.
“Not a great Sunday,” Ricciardo said after the race.
The Aussie eventually ended the afternoon in seventh place, three places back from his younger teammate Max Verstappen who he lost out at Turn 2 when Ricciardo had to take action to avoid collecting the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg as he rejoined the track.
Things didn’t improve for the Australian as he was later forced to abandon the faster one stop strategy in favour of the two-stop strategy after he flat-spotted his tyres.
Whilst the pitstop from Red Bull was slower than their usual high standards Ricciardo did not blame them for his poor race, instead, he sighted traffic as his biggest frustration after he spent most of the race tucked up behind quick cars that ruined his tyres.
Ricciardo is still not convinced the team are where they need to be on Sunday’s after making leaps forward in qualifying.
“Unfortunately we’ve had good Saturday’s not great Sundays, just couldn’t really get a good break, I’d say.
“The start off the line wasn’t too bad, and then the Mercedes in front and Rosberg coming back, I guess I was on the inside and couldn’t really get momentum out of Turn Two. I lost a place to Max.
“I had pretty good speed I would say in the first stint on the ultrasoft, we were using the tyres quite well.
“I said on the radio I think we’d be quicker in clean air. Just always when we were behind someone we couldn’t use the tyres any more, and even with the long DRS we couldn’t get close enough to pass.
“Basically we were behind a car most of the race, and using the tyres unfortunately not in the best way, always in dirty air, so we couldn’t really make an impression.”
The ever smiling Aussie wasn’t so smiley when he was asked how he thought himself and the team performed.
“A few scrappy parts from my side and I would say the team side today. It was not a clean race from both of us.
“I locked a brake into Turn 13 and damaged the second set of tyres I had, and then a few of the pitstops and calls were a bit average again.
“We’ve got to clean some things up on Sunday.”
