Daniel Ricciardo admits that qualifying has been an “Achilles’ heel” since his Formula 1 comeback and it prevented him from scoring points in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
AlphaTauri entered the final round of the 2023 campaign in eighth position in the Constructors’ Championship, only seven points behind Williams directly above.
But while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda secured eighth place on race day, Ricciardo could only recover to 11th from 15th, as the Faenza squad missed out on usurping Williams.
“It wasn’t a bad race,” Ricciardo reflected. “We had decent pace, but as soon as you get into a little dirty air, it’s hard.
“I feel like we could’ve gotten a few more points but starting further back put us on the back foot slightly. It’s good that Yuki got some points, but we needed a little more.”
Ricciardo’s chances of climbing through the order were hampered by a visor tear-off ending up in his front brake duct, forcing him to pit as early as the seventh lap of the race.
However, he denied that the earlier-than-planned stop curtailed his hopes of scoring points and reckons he could have challenged Lance Stroll for 10th with an additional lap.
“I need to see how much it affected us, because I think for a two-stop, we would have probably pitted a little bit later,” Ricciardo said regarding his strategy.
“I don’t know if it maybe put us in a little bit of traffic or not, but I think it was not bad. We still, I would say, recovered well and had a decent race.
“Obviously there’s always ifs and whats and maybes, but one more lap I think we had Stroll or certainly we would have got his DRS and had a chance at him. One lap away from a potential point, which is not too bad, obviously where we started [from].”
Having excelled in Mexico to convert fourth on the grid into a seventh-place finish, Ricciardo concedes that the final two rounds were stymied by poor qualifying displays.
“If I look at Brazil and this race, qualifying was kind of the Achilles’ heel and I’ll obviously take some responsibility for that, maybe not putting the best lap together,” he issued.
“Brazil we started a lap down [after contact at Turn 1 before the race was stopped], but actually our pace in the race I think we could have fought well in the points. Today if we started a few positions further up I’m sure we would have fought for a couple points.
“Obviously these are ifs and buts and maybes, but the pace is there and it’s just probably sorting out the one-lap pace – other than Mexico and a couple of others – but there’s a lot to be encouraged about.”
Ricciardo concedes that he was bemused by his failure to “improve the lap time from Q1” in Q2, with Tsunoda advancing to Q3 and eventually qualifying a career-best sixth.
Having opted to alter the set-up of his AT04 car prior to qualifying, the eight-time F1 winner insists his side of the AlphaTauri garage had “a couple of things” to process.
“With track evolution, things like this, it was quite strange,” Ricciardo commented. “Nothing fundamentally felt off, there was a few corners where you’re fighting a little bit, but honestly it just felt like we didn’t have the speed. And for now, a little bit of a mystery.”
He added: “I definitely felt like we were going to be a Q3 car. Obviously it’s never guaranteed. But we were certainly confident.
“We regressed, we got worse,” he added. “And we didn’t really experiment with anything crazy, so for now, a bit of a mystery.”
Expanding on the disparity between his pace over a single lap with fresh tyres and low fuel compared to his competitiveness on high fuel in race trim, Ricciardo explained: “I think the summary of the year is race pace I was most days pretty happy with, so I think that was something that was really positive.
“I feel like the more laps I get in the car the more I understand it and get into a rhythm, so that kind of explains a little bit my positive feeling on race pace. Then quali some standouts and then some like yesterday, some where we don’t fully get on top of it.
