Daniel Ricciardo described his early exit from the United States Grand Prix as “incredible frustrating” and took out his anger on a wall in his room at the Circuit of the Americas.
Ricciardo held fourth early on, having survived a clash with Sebastian Vettel, but retired after just nine laps when his Red Bull RB14 shut down as he rounded the Turn 11 hairpin.
Ricciardo was visibly angered as he hung around the infield section in the wake of his retirement and team boss Christian Horner revealed to Sky Sports that he “took out his frustration in his room by putting his fist through the wall.”
The Australian has not climbed onto the podium since his dominant Monaco victory back in May, during which period he has retired from five Grands Prix.
“It’s incredibly frustrating to retire so early in the race and I just don’t seem to have any luck at the moment,” he said.
“Everything just switched off and it seemed pretty much identical to the issue I had in Bahrain at the beginning of the year.
“I couldn’t even communicate with anyone on the radio so it looks like a battery failure.
“Now, seeing how the race played out makes it even harder to take as it could have been pretty interesting and it was a great afternoon for Max [Verstappen].
“There’s not much more to say about it to be honest.
“A lot of times this year there have been things out of my control but I can only keep trying.
“The biggest shame is that I only have a handful of races left with Red Bull and I want to have more highs than we’ve had.
“I want to be able to celebrate with the team at least one more time and be on the podium to enjoy that feeling, but we’re running out of races which is pretty tough to take at the moment.”
