Daniel Ricciardo will line up 6th on tomorrow's Spanish GP grid, right alongside team mate Max Verstappen whom he trailed in qualifying by about half a second.
High expectations were set by Red Bull Racing's announced upgrade package for its RB13 before the Barcelona weekend.
Ricciardo played down beforehand the impact of the evolution however, so the Honey Badger wasn't exactly surprised to find himself still trailing the red and silver cars ahead.
"We didn't expect to come here and get pole, as much as we hoped" said the Aussie.
"For me, I think I'm still a second off from pole from what I saw. Max is closer, but we still have to find a bit. I was losing out in the last sector today so I've got to understand why we lost so much time there.
"I think we were pretty competitive in the first and second (sectors), but in the last we're losing out. Relative, the pace is still unchanged with the leaders. Mercedes and Ferrari are still a step or two ahead.
"We've got to keep working on what we've got, and I'll try to understand the last sector for me today.
Ricciardo will have a look at the data but he admitted that in the car, the sector was indeed a handful.
"When you're obviously lacking speed in some areas you're never that happy with the car.
"It didn't seem like the tyres were going off, it just seemed like in the low speed corners we struggled a bit, and also this morning."
"It wasn't there yesterday, and we made some changes, so we'll try and understand."
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