Daniel Ricciardo conceded it was a “really, really strange weekend” for his team as the Australian and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda failed to fire at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Despite the VISA CashApp RB team making a number of upgrades to the car, it failed to materialise into any improvements on the track.
Every qualifying session and race from the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >
Dejected Norris falls short of Max again | 02:20
‘NOT GOING TO LIKE THAT’: Verstappen booed as Red Bull superstar claims Spanish GP crown
Even as early as the opening practice session both drivers were left in the dust of their rivals as the car crawled around the circuit.
In qualifying both Ricciardo and Tsunoda were knocked out in Q1 with things not getting much better when the lights went out for the race.
Tsunoda struggled to find any pace as he crossed the line only ahead of Williams driver Logan Sargeant.
Ricciardo managed to move his way up the order from his starting position of 18th as he ultimately finished in 15th spot.
But it was far from where the team had hoped they’d be placed with team boss Laurent Mekies delivering a brutal assessment of the horror weekend.
“We came here with high hopes for the upgrades that everyone back in the factory has worked so hard to design and produce as part of our aggressive development strategy,” Mekies said.
“Unfortunately, right from the start of Free Practice we were lacking pace in every session.
“There is no point denying this was a poor weekend for us and although the gaps were very small, there’s no excuses for the fact we just weren’t competitive.”
‘NOT GOING TO LIKE THAT’: Verstappen booed as Red Bull superstar claims Spanish GP crown
Despite the disappointing weekend and lowly finish in the race, the always smiling Ricciardo put a positive spin on it all but said the team have a lot of work to do ahead of next weekend.
“From the beginning, from a competitiveness (perspective), we weren’t there,” Ricciardo said.
“It was a really, really strange weekend for us, to have dropped off so much.
“My race today, honestly, I felt good.
“I was happy with the race, happy with what I got out of it, but yeah, 15th is not something that we can be happy about.
“With the package we had this weekend, I honestly don’t think we could have done anything better.
“I don’t want to say that makes everything better, it doesn’t, but we need to move on.
“I’ve got plenty of notes and feedback from the race today to give to the team tonight.
“In the next 48/72 hours, (there’s) lots of things to look at.”
SPANISH GRAND PRIX RACE RESULTS
1st: Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2nd: Lando Norris (McLaren)
3rd: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), 4th: George Russell (Mercedes)
5th: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 6th: Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari)
7th: Oscar Piastri (McLaren), 8th: Sergio Pérez (Red Bull)
9th: Pierre Gasly (Alpine), 10th: Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
11th: Nico Hülkenberg (Haas), 12th: Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
13th: Zhou Guanyu (Kick Sauber), 14th: Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
15th: Daniel Ricciardo (RB), 16th: Valtteri Bottas (Kick Sauber)
17th: Kevin Magnussen (Haas), 18th: Alex Albon (Williams)
19th: Yuki Tsunoda (RB), 20th: Logan Sargeant (Williams)