Daniel Ricciardo has expressed his frustration after seeing a possible podium finish in the Mexican Grand Prix disappear in a puff of smoke after another car failure in the closing stages on Sunday.
The Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver had been on course for second place only for the car to fail on him, meaning he retired for an eighth time in 2018 and left him feeling deflated and questioning his luck.
“I saw pass fail on my dash which I guess was some sort of hydraulic failure and I was forced to retire immediately,” said Ricciardo. “This sucks and it is at a point where I feel why should I even come on a Sunday.
“There hasn’t been a clean weekend for so long due to many different reasons and it’s breaking my heart. Deflated comes to mind but this feels deeper than that.”
Ricciardo had started from pole position but had lost the lead at the start to team-mate Max Verstappen but had been getting good use of his Pirelli tyres to run second ahead of Sebastian Vettel, only for the car again to give up on him.
The Australian now has only two races of his Red Bull career to go as he heads to the Renault Sport Formula One Team in 2019, but he feels like at this time he cannot catch a break.
“I put it on pole but lost out at the start,” said Ricciardo. “It just doesn’t seem to happen for me on a Sunday, even if I have a good Saturday.
I don’t want to end it like this and I know nobody is doing it deliberately, but I just can’t seem to catch a break and a double podium for the Team today was exactly what we all wanted.
“I’m a very positive guy and I will probably still wake up tomorrow with some sort of positivity.”
