Daniel Ricciardo has revealed that he is upset about the “downward spiral” that he has been experiencing in the past few races.
Since taking P5 at the US GP, the Australian has suffered a massive drop in terms of results. A non-points finish in Mexico and a DNF in Brazil were not ideal situations, but then he was hit with the hat-trick of bad luck with a P14 in Qatar.
At the Qatar GP, the McLaren driver was surprisingly knocked out in Q2, only going fourteenth-fastest overall. He had a shambolic race, and ended up finishing exactly where he started.
Ricciardo revealed that he was upset about the “downward spiral” that he has been caught in for the last few weeks.
“I’ll look at some of the laps where I didn’t have to save (fuel) and see how the pace was,” he told RacingNews365.com after the Qatar GP.
“But unfortunately, since Austin it’s been a bit of a downward spiral, but I don’t want to be too negative with that. I think it’s just been a run like that.
“This weekend, I don’t think I sucked. I just missed half a tenth in some of these key corners and, of course, it adds up.
“So three and a half tenths in qualifying is not what I want. But I think gone are the days where I’m seven, eight tenths off, so I want to say I’ve moved on from there, but there’s clearly still some work to do on some circuit-specific ones.”
Final step required to get better than Norris in all races
Ricciardo reminded everyone that it was still his first year at McLaren, and that he has improved a lot.
“I can see the difference in the driving, and why I’m running into some of these problems,” he continued.
“But I guess if it was easy, then I would have perfected it already.
“So I definitely think I’ve improved my core style from the beginning of the year, but there’s clearly still a final step to go in some of these sorts of tracks that he’s (teammate Lando Norris) still on top of more than I am,” he concluded.
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