Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull has been left puzzled by its "unexpected" lack of race pace during the European Grand Prix in Baku.
The Australian driver qualified in second place for the first Formula 1 race in Azerbaijan but struggled in the opening two stints.
He found more speed in the final part of the race, but he had already lost too much ground and could only recover to seventh. Ricciardo said Red Bull needs to investigate the lack of pace.
"At the start we put ourselves in a good position and the aim was to get Nico[ Rosberg]," he explained. "We managed to hold second and I felt pretty good in the first few laps, especially as I could see Seb [Vettel] wasn’t catching me.
"After lap three we started to slide the rear and there was no way of controlling it. I went from being very optimistic about our race to being uncertain. I don’t think we had the wrong strategy, one stop would have been ideal but we had to adapt and were forced into a two stop race.
"We were slow in the first two stints but in the third one we managed to find some pace and I passed Hulkenburg, which was good fun. I think Max suffered the same issues so that’s just the way it went, I don’t think we could have done anything else today.
"We need to understand why because we usually perform well in hot races, like Singapore. Today was a bit unexpected. I got everyone’s hopes up yesterday by saying it could be the race of the season, It was, however, pretty uneventful."
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