Daniel Ricciardo: We are not panicking

Daniel Ricciardo only showed the fourteenth result in qualifying in Bahrain, including a loss to his teammate: Yuki Tsunoda will start from eleventh place in the first race of the season. Commenting on these results, the Australian honestly admitted that he was dissatisfied with his own work, but vowed to do everything he could to get back to winning ways in the first race of the season.

“I am dissatisfied with both my performance and the result,” Speedcafe quotes Daniel. “It’s not that I was a bad driver, but when I crossed the finish line I never felt like I had done a good lap.” There was always the feeling that, for example, turn 1 or 4 could have been driven better.

There were always parts of the track where I was sure I was losing time, and I never managed to set a good lap. Even if I could improve somewhere, I lost some time again in the next corner, and it was not possible to gain it back consistently…

Although we thought if we did a great lap we could reach the final session, but otherwise we should have finished close to 12th position. We expected to start the year with more confidence, but that didn’t work out. However, we cannot say that we are alarmed or panicked.

I have no doubt that we can do better than I did in this qualifying. Of course Nico Hulkenberg (who set the 10th fastest time) performed well, but if you look back at last year, Haas usually struggled on race day. If this happens now, maybe we can at least get ahead of this car. When we talk about McLaren, they are fast, but we didn’t look bad in the long series of laps. Overall, there is some optimism that we will be able to move higher.

Moreover, this is the first race and anything can happen. Some will spend it with enthusiasm, while others may be nervous, so it’s difficult to make predictions. You just need to carefully monitor everything that happens on the track and act correctly, and the rest will work itself out. The results are tight, so there is something to fight for.”