Daniel Ricciardo expressed frustration at both his grid penalty and one-lap performance as he prepares to line up from eighth place for his home race in Australia.
Ricciardo was judged to have exceeded the minimum time set by the FIA’s ECU while returning to the pit lane during a red flag period in Friday’s second practice session.
Stewards determined that while Ricciardo did not drive in a dangerous manner, he had breached the regulations, and issued him with a three-place grid penalty as a result.
Ricciardo therefore entered qualifying with the sanction hanging over him, and was a low-key fifth in Q3, meaning he will drop to eighth on the grid.
“I thought it was unjust,” Ricciardo said on his penalty.
“There’s reprimands, there’s fines, there’s other things but to kind of shoot me in the ankle before the season started was… I thought they could have done better, but, anyway, from fifth we go to eighth.
“I think the first parts of qualifying were okay but at the end we just missed a few tenths, it looked like it was all in the first sector.
“I don’t really know with the balance what I could have done, there’s much, much more [pace] there so I’ll see now but yeah, for sure it’s frustrating a little bit.”
Ricciardo, along with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, opted to complete Q2 on the Supersoft tyres, as opposed to the Ultrasoft compound preferred by their rivals.
It means the pair will start Sunday’s race on the red-banded compound, an aspect Ricciardo hopes will prove fruitful in assisting his recovery towards the front.
“I think we’re the only ones in the top 10 to do that so hopefully that’s going to work to our favour,” he said.
“Probably late in the race we can make some things happen.
“It’s still a tough, tough track to overtake [on] but I’m looking forward to coming through the field.
“We’re obviously better than eighth so I’ll try and make it happen.”
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