Daniel Ricciardo was left hoping to find his RB Formula 1 car was damaged after being eliminated in Q2 in qualifying for the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo will start Saturday’s race from 14th on the grid while RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda will assume ninth, marking the rebranded squad’s first top-10 start.
The Australian found himself with a 0.461-second deficit to Tsunoda in the second stage of qualifying, having made a minor improvement on his final tour.
“Up until this point, no, I think we’ve definitely been close,” Ricciardo said of the margin to Tsunoda after Friday’s qualifying session.
“But obviously, he did a good job, so I’m definitely not saying he didn’t, but it’s not like he’s been really comfortable and I haven’t been.
“Coming into quali, it was pretty evenly matched, and in Q1 it looked that way.”
Ricciardo also trailed Tsunoda in Q1, although the deficit at that point was just 0.077s, as both RB cars avoided being knocked out in the opening segment.
“Then he and pretty much everyone else was able to make that step [in Q2], and we simply struggle,” he continued.
“Before I think about the race I want to really dive into that session and see what there is because, yeah, I know that’s not the gap.”
The majority of Ricciardo’s disadvantage came towards the end of the first sector, attacking hard into Turn 8 and compromising his pace through the subsequent esses.
Despite setting a personal best second sector, Ricciardo was left frustrated to not take the ultimate step needed to take his VCARB-01 into the top ten shootout.
“Last week I was I was frustrated just more with myself because I knew there was time on the table,” Ricciardo, who also qualified 14th in Bahrain, expressed.
“Of course, the car’s never going to be perfect, but I knew last week was on me. But today is obviously a bit more of a mystery.
“The balance, okay, a few corners, which, of course, you struggle a little bit here and there, but simply in Q2 when everyone’s able to find half a second or something, we just plateaued.
“I felt like I couldn’t get any more out of it with what I had. It wasn’t like I had massive understeer or oversteer, it was simply just we didn’t have the, what felt like, grip compared to the others.
“I know where the time was but I don’t know how we could have got it in that session.”
Ricciardo, who hopes his exploits in 2024 will be rewarded with a seat at the main Red Bull team, was unable to find an explanation for his Q2 exit and hoped that post-qualifying inspections would reveal damage to his car.
“I don’t think we did anything, even compared to Q1, nothing too crazy. Even just doing the same, you would just gain normally with track evolution and all of the simple things; you don’t even need to try harder, the lap time just comes, and it just didn’t.
“I don’t want to be too down. I mean, also this track, there’s so much load and you hit some kerbs – I don’t know, maybe there’s something that we damaged on a kerb or something.
“Let’s see. Hopeful that maybe we find something like that but, yeah, for now, a bit early to think too positively about the race.”
