Daniel Ricciardo offered an honest assessment of his performance this year relative to team mate Max Verstappen, saying he had no excuses to put forward.
The Aussie has been consistently outrun in qualifying lately by the Dutch prodigy who also put two race wins under his belt in the last four races.
"I do not give any excuses," Ricciardo told Dutch publication Formula 1.
"Max is just driving brilliantly this year and knows how to get the most out of the car in every race."
The Honey Badger is over 40 points ahead of Verstappen in the drivers' championship however, mainly as a result of the 20-year-old finding himself on the receiving end of his Renault engine's poor reliability record over the summer.
"That's incredible," Ricciardo admitted. "Max has had a lot of bad luck and I have no explanation for why.
"I have asked the engineers if it could be because of him, but Max is not too rough with the equipment.
"It's just pure bad luck," he insisted.
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