"Yeah, it's frustrating" - Daniel Ricciardo on poor qualifying performance ahead of the 2024 Australian GP

Daniel Ricciardo believes his qualifying lap ahead of the 2024 Australian GP was one of his better laps of the 2024 season. Speaking to on-site media, the 34-year-old claimed that his current situation is not like his time at McLaren where he struggled to extract any kind of performance from the car.

Eliminated out of Q1 for the second time in a row and out-qualified by his teammate for the third weekend in a row, Daniel Ricciardo was baffled by the performance of his car. The RB driver failed to understand the lap-time shortcomings to his teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

Ricciardo was nowhere close to the confidence or performance he had after he returned from his injury. Since it was the third weekend in a row where he lacked in qualifying performance, the former Red Bull Racing driver sounded worried and gutted to start from the back of the grid.

While he admitted that he enjoyed driving his current car, Ricciardo failed to understand where he could extract more from it in qualifying. Unlike his days in McLaren, he claims he’s more comfortable with the VCARB01. His days with the Woking squad almost ended his career after he found it difficult to drive the car on hand or extract any performance from it.

Compared to that form, he claimed that he has been more comfortable in his current car and felt that his qualifying lap was one of the better laps since the season started. Asked if it was even more frustrating knowing it was a car worthy of a top 10 spot on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, and that's why like today, okay obviously the time got deleted but the lap itself was definitely the best quality lap I've done this year. And as I said, those ones are normally quite good and you know going into Q2 I don't know where there was much more time. You obviously take a couple of tenths from track evo (evolution)."

"But as I said six, seven tenths that's not you know. I think from a balance and everything like so to be clear with the car, I felt like I feel confident in terms of braking and balance and all that. So it's not like say McLaren where I was a bit unsure and all I can't really push the car here. But yeah you just some corner speeds I see I'm simply just not able to carry that speed.”

---

Daniel Ricciardo believes qualifying performance might not be related to driving style

Daniel Ricciardo has had a unique style of driving involving late braking that has often played to his advantage and his disadvantage during his time at McLaren. In common parlance, that would mean he needs a car to be set up in a manner where it would be capable of providing him with the perfect balance to deliver the best results.

During his tenure at Red Bull and Renault, he was able to match some of the best on the grid and deliver results. But in his current situation at RB, the only time he was able to deliver was when the car was best suited to him.

When asked by the on-site media at the Australian GP whether his late braking style was limited by the car design, Ricciardo felt that he was at the edge when it came to extracting performance from the car. Asked if the car is giving him what he needs to perform, Ricciardo replied:

“I feel like I'm at the edge with the car in terms of pretty much full-wheel sliding. So it's balanced and I feel now I'm at the limit of where it's potential is. So after Saudi, we saw some things across cars the team changed quite a lot and gave me quite a few new parts for this weekend, to address some of those issues and concerns."

"And it looked like it was better but I still let's say I'm still not fully convinced because we still feel like we're struggling more than we normally are in a car that I'm again pretty happy with. It's all like yeah, it's really struggling here or here? It's actually been a pretty nice car to drive, just the lap time is proving a lot worse,” he added.

Daniel Ricciardo claimed RB had changed a lot on his car to make it equal to that of his teammate. However, he felt they have been struggling more than normal despite being comfortable with the driveability of the car.

Starting at the back of the grid in 18th, the RB driver has an uphill climb in the race ahead on home ground. He is still in the hunt for his first points of the season with enormous pressure to deliver.