Daniel Ricciardo says his results so far this season with RB are “a little bit weird to comprehend” given that "internally" he’s feeling good and “in a good place”.
Ricciardo struggled to match teammate Yuki Tsunoda's pace in qualifying in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia, while neither driver put points on the board at either venue.
At his home race in Melbourne two weeks ago, he was a lowly P18 on the grid – ten spots behind his teammate – and finished race day in 12th positions while Tsunoda delivered a productive P7 to his team.
RB team principal Laurent Mekies has acknowledged Daniel Ricciardo’s early struggles and suggested the Aussie needs “a more comfortable car” to improve his form, something RB is willing to provide him with in due time.
However, the Aussie insists he’s feeling quite confident at the wheel of his mount, even despite the performance discrepancy with his teammate.
“It’s funny because, on paper, it hasn’t been good,” he told F1 TV.
“I know obviously that as well the results haven’t been what I wanted, but personally and the confidence and the happiness and all of that is really unchanged.
“It’s really just a matter now of getting a result and putting a few things to rest. But internally and the place I’m in, personally, I feel really good.
“And that’s why it’s probably been a little bit weird to comprehend why the result hasn’t happened yet. But otherwise feeling good.”
Riccardo insists he’s spared no effort to try and boost his pace, working at length with his engineers and analysing the data to try and understand exactly where to apportion blame for his shortfall.
“We’ve been putting a lot of work in off-track as well in the off weeks and trying to understand how much is me, how much is the car, what is it that maybe the car’s not giving me that I’m looking for and things like this,” he explained.
“It’s really just small things here and there. I think what’s important now is, again, because we’re not in a place where we’re lost or I don’t feel good, I think it’s important for us just to focus on sitting down with my engineers and that’s it.
“We don’t start receiving suggestions from other people and ‘have you thought about this or do that’ because then you go down a rabbit hole that we’re certainly not willing already to go down.
“So it’s just really staying the course. Obviously it is frustrating, because I do want the results and I feel very prepared and I feel like I’m ready to get results. But we can’t get side-tracked by anything else, really.”
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