Ricciardo dismayed to miss first cut in Melbourne quali

Daniel Ricciardo admitted that he found it hard to believe that he had missed the first cut in qualifying for tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix, leaving the RB driver lining up for the race in 18th place on the grid.

Ricciardo had never previously been knocked out in the first round of qualifying in his home race before.

It had looked as though Ricciardo had just managed to get through with his last flying lap, only to have the time subsequently deleted for exceeding track limits at turn 4.

It had been left to Ricciardo's race engineer Pierre Hamelin to break the news to Ricciardo over the team radio, and he admitted that he had found it hard to believe.

“I wouldn’t even say it sunk in when it happened,” he admitted. “Pierre told me and I kind of knew what it meant, but I don’t know – even now I don’t think it’s fully sunk in.

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"I knew turn 4 I was fighting it and I knew I washed a little bit wider, obviously, but it happens and then you think about the next corner so I nearly forgot about it until he brought it up.

"The lap, honestly - I felt like I gave it all I had, so I was happy with the lap," he continued, while saying that overall he still wasn't satisfied with the speed of this season's new car.

"I wasn’t happy with still where we are in terms of the stopwatch," he said. "For me, that’s still not quite adding up in my head where I think it should be.

“The team’s put a lot of effort in since Saudi to fix some things that we saw, and adjusted the car and put on some new parts here and there. It looked better, but I’m still a little bit sceptical.

“I’ve done enough of these laps and qualis and all that to know where I am, and still there’s some things I think where we’re missing.

"I feel the balance is all in the window," he explained after the end of Q1. "I feel I’m driving and I’m not really struggling with anything in particular.

"But then you’ll see just some corners and I’m a chunk slower, but that’s kind of all I’ve got. I’ve got some thoughts, but I just know a lap like that – it’s normally faster.

"It’s been a struggle all weekend, but you know, come qualifying, everyone puts in on and you can see where you’re at, and that lap was all I had and still slow."

In contrast, Ricciardo's team mate Yuki Tsunoda did make the cut and made it all the way through to the final round top ten pole shoot-out where he finished in eighth place.

“Definitely happy. To be honest with you I didn’t expect to be in P8," he said. "I was really happy, and definitely a big credit to the team that’s able to give me a very consistent car - from FP1, I’ve felt quite comfortable."

Tsunoda said that what he needed now was to focus on making no mistakes on Sunday. "The last two races were very frustrating for us, so that’s what we need for now. If we’re able to put it all together, maybe we can score points."

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