Daniel Ricciardo had hoped to have got quicker and quicker throughout Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday but was left surprised after struggling to sixth on the grid.
The Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver had hoped for a front row grid slot but felt he was not able to find the time when it mattered as the track evolved, and ultimately he ended up 0.981 seconds off the pole time set by Lewis Hamilton, and more than six-tenths of a second down on team-mate Max Verstappen.
Ricciardo says Red Bull showed they have a good car for the race during practice but it would have been preferable to qualify higher than he did, and he hopes they can find some answers to why he was left so frustrated by the performance of the RB14 on Saturday.
“It was a strange session and I was surprised that we lost so much pace in Q3,” said Ricciardo. “We made some changes between FP3 and Qualifying and initially the car felt pretty sweet.
“Everything we changed seemed positive and I thought we would get quicker and quicker as the track evolved, but we just lost pace as the session went on. I don’t have any answers as to why that happened yet which is pretty frustrating.
“I honestly thought we had a really good chance of a front row and in the space of an hour we lost a second to our competitors. Even with two attempts in Q3 we just couldn’t improve. It felt like we did everything right but the lap time doesn’t show it.
“I know we have good race pace but on a street circuit Qualifying is so important. It was strange and frustrating but hopefully we will find some answers.”
