Ricciardo frustrated by Red Bull’s lack of progress

Daniel Ricciardo says his Red Bull Racing team needs to reassess its development approach having failed to see any improvement from recent updates to his RB11.

Last year’s Canadian Grand Prix winner cut a frustrated figure after qualifying ninth for Sunday’s race with his Red Bull 1.7s adrift of pole position winner Lewis Hamiltion.

Ricciardo was out-qualified by his team-mate Daniil Kvyat but the Western Australian was more concerned by the lack of progress his Red Bull team have made in trying to close the gap to the pacesetting Mercedes squad.

The 25-year-old claimed the recent raft of updates have failed to improve the RB11, leaving Ricicardo worried there is a fundamental problem with the car.

“In Q1 and Q2 we did a build-up lap and then a push, but it felt like it was taking too much out of the tyre, so we said by Q3 it should be OK for the first lap,” said Ricciardo, who is also utilising his final Renault engine of his season allocation.

“But it was nowhere, I couldn’t get it, and it just wasn’t ready.

“We just can’t seem to get a sweet spot, which brings out the frustrations.

“The last few races we’ve had updates, but to be honest they haven’t really done anything for us.

“I don’t think we really know what we need right now or where to find it.

“We are trying but we are not getting much in return.

“We probably need to take a step back and look somewhere else or try and see if there is something fundamental we are missing.

“Obviously on the power side we know where that is, but on the chassis side there’s something there which we can’t grab onto which we had last year.”

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel has been issued with a five place grid penalty and three penalty points on his licence for overtaking Roberto Merhi under red flags during Practice 3.

An MGU-K issue saw Vettel qualify in 15th spot, however this latest penalty will demote him to the rear of the grid.