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Tyre woes leave Ricciardo perplexed

Daniel Ricciardo admits he felt "helpless" dealing with Red Bull's tyre problems in the Grand Prix of Europe and wants the team to investigate the reasons for the issues.

Red Bull has struggled with high degradation for each of the last two races, needing to make two pit stops when the majority of teams have been able to complete the race with one. The problem was clearly visible in Baku where both Ricciardo and team-mate Max Verstappen made a second stop for medium tyres before some drivers had even stopped once.

Ricciardo admits he is at a loss to explain why Red Bull is having such a difficult time with the tyres but is hopeful the team's size will help it find a solution.

"It’s interesting," Ricciardo said. "Some races work and you’re able to push the tyre all the way and it seems easy, everyone says 'you’re so good at managing tyres!' Then days like [Baku] you’re helpless. I spoke briefly with Max and I believe he suffered with the same things, I think on lap three we were both saying we couldn’t do anything out there.

"I think it’s just important we understand why. Fortunately we’re a big team and we’ve got a lot of tools, I’m sure we’ll get on top of it. If we get on top of it it will be a step forward."

And Ricciardo says the problem is an unexpected one as Red Bull has tended to be kind to its tyres in recent seasons.

"We just had rear tyre issues and couldn’t keep the grip in them, couldn’t keep the temperature out of them. They just felt like they were just getting really hot and wheel-spinning in fourth gear. It’s a bit unexpected; we race in some hot circuits across the calendar and Singapore, for example, is always one of our stronger ones. We didn’t expect to struggle but that was our biggest limitation."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.