Problems 'just kind of snowballed' for Ricciardo

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Local hero Daniel Ricciardo had a home Grand Prix to forget on Sunday at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.

Ricciardo didn't even complete the initial installation lap before the RB13 ground to a halt with an electrical problem. He was two laps down by the time he finally emerged from pit lane to join the race.

"Obviously I was lapping a few laps down," Ricciardo said after the race. "But we were getting some information which was better than nothing.

"I think the more laps we get with this car the more we're learning. It was still valuable track time."

However, even this upside was curtailed when the car finally died on lap 25. Ricciardo was forced to pull off and park by the side of the track.

"That was a separate issue [to the start]," he explained. "At the end we believe it was something to do with fuel pressure - basically it just switched off. There was nothing - it was just instant. No procedure I could do to stay out there.

"I feel bad for everyone, bad for the fans," he added.

"Obviously I believe there's more people here supporting me than the others. I'm sure they would have loved me to get out there and race, but it just kind of snowballed I guess from yesterday."

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Ricciardo took heart from his team mate's performance, after Max Verstappen went on to claim a solid fifth place.

"I think the positive - if I'm going to look on the bright side - Max looked to be doing a relatively good pace. Maybe we can learn from something from his race today and as a team move forward.

"Happy to move on," he concluded. "It's okay. Obviously I'm disappointed today but I'll wake up tomorrow and be fine and ready to prepare and go for China."

GALLERY: all the pics from Sunday's action

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.