Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth in the British Grand Prix on Sunday, but felt his Aston Martin Red Bull Racing team did not have the pace necessary in the RB14 to challenge either Scuderia Ferrari or Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport.
The Australian was the sole finisher for Red Bull after Max Verstappen was forced to retire, but he was unable to match the kind of pace that Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas had when it matters at Silverstone.
“We just didn’t have the legs today,” said Ricciardo. “The first lap was fun and a bit crazy for sure, I don’t know what happened to Lewis but I saw he was turned around. Then with Max and Kimi we had some good battles.
“The re-starts were intense but we just didn’t have the speed on the straights to do much and behind Ferrari and Mercedes we were just too slow. I think the car in clear air was pretty good, particularly in the second stint on the medium tyre when we were able to pull away from Kimi a bit and then start catching Max.”
Ricciardo felt he also lost out when the safety car was deployed just moments after taking a gamble by making his second pit stop, which ultimately left him at the back of the six leading cars, some of which were able to get a free stop under that safety car.
“The team then pulled the trigger on a two stop strategy for me and then the safety car came out. We just got unlucky and lost track position.”
Ricciardo admitted he had good pace towards the end of the race but despite Bottas struggling with his tyres in the closing laps, his own tyres dropped off when he found himself on the back of the Mercedes driver, and he was forced therefore to rely on a mistake to be able to pass him, something that was not forthcoming.
“We tried at the end to pass Bottas as he was struggling more with the tyres but as soon as I got really close to him I felt like my tyres were the same age as his, you just lose the downforce and really struggle,” said the Australian.
“It was a bit like last week following Kimi and I really needed him to make a mistake, otherwise on the straights, even with DRS they have a lot more power.”
Ricciardo feels that things have not been going his way since he took his victory in Monaco back at the end of May, and he hopes he can use the weeks break to come back in the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring with restored confidence.
“I guess since Monaco we haven’t really had things going our way,” said Ricciardo. “I’ll still take the Monaco win but I don’t want that to be the last hurrah.
“I’m very excited to have a week off now, I like racing but I’m just going to put the car away for a week, let it think about itself and then come back in Germany (laughs). I might feed it some Schnitzel in Germany, maybe I said something wrong to the car. But for now, vamos a la playa.”
