Christian Horner says Red Bull had "a race to forget" as it failed to score at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Daniil Kvyat's heavy crash at the end of Q3 left him with the tall order of starting from the pit lane, but Daniel Ricciardo was targeting solid points from seventh on the grid. The Australian made a strong start but slight contact with Felipe Massa saw both drivers pick up a puncture which relegated Ricciardo to the back of the field.
While Horner apportioned no blame for the incident, he says it left the team with a near-impossible task in terms of trying to score points.
"Ricciardo had a good start and went for the gap," Horner said. "It was a racing incident with Massa. The result was a puncture at the worst possible time because you have to do a whole lap very slow.
"He gave away more that 70 seconds. Thereafter he effectively ran a one stop race on the harder tyre. His pace was okay. If everything had gone to plan maybe P6 would have been possible today.
"With Danny Kvyat, all race he had asymmetric brake temperatures and that caused quite a lot of lock ups. Unfortunately that compromised his race quite a bit. He did his best to drive around the problem. But overtaking here is already difficult here without carrying that kind of issue.
"So really a race to forget for us."
RACE REPORT: Hamilton eases to dominant Suzuka victory
AS IT HAPPENED: Japanese Grand Prix
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