Daniel Ricciardo admits he is unsure what more he can do to win for Red Bull after a pit stop error cost him the chance of victory in the Monaco Grand Prix.
Pole-sitter Ricciardo led the entire first stint in wet conditions and only dropped behind Lewis Hamilton when pitting for intermediate tyres. Having caught the Mercedes, Ricciardo stayed out a lap longer as the track dried and was comfortably fast enough to emerge in the lead when a tyre mix up at Red Bull saw his stop delayed and kept him behind Hamilton, ultimately costing the Australian victory.
"I don’t know to be honest," Ricciardo said when asked what needs to be done for him to win a race. "I think I took Barcelona on the chin and then took it well but two in a row now, and it’s not like we’re in Mercedes’ position, we’re not able to win a race, so to have an opportunity to lead two races in a row and especially here in Monaco.
"I put it on the front and you wake up and you see thunderstorms and it’s like, OK, there’s a few curved balls coming my way but I felt I dealt with them as well as I could have and had the pace in the wet at the beginning and again I thought I was controlling everything I had to.
"Obviously a big part of it is relying on the team and the strategy but yeah, to get it wrong twice now it definitely hurts. I’m not sure where to go from here, what to do. Obviously they’ve got to understand what’s going on and learn from it but this win I’ll never get back, that’s a fact."
While obviously unhappy about the slow pit stop, Ricciardo also feels Red Bull didn't need to fit intermediate tyres until Hamilton stopped himself.
"Two races in a row, two races in a row. That’s all I can say. We were quick in the wet, we had a comfortable lead, pitted for inters, got stuck behind Lewis and we just effectively put ourselves in a race we didn’t need to be into. Then I got called into the pits for the slicks and the tyres weren’t ready.
"I didn’t make the call. I didn't make the late call. I got to the pits and everyone’s running around like headless ‘chooks’. Massively, massively disappointed. I don’t like being up here being miserable, because I got a podium in Formula One, so it should be a good day, but when it happens two weekends in a row it’s hard to take."
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