"Budapest last year, I drove the car a day before, and then I outqualify Yuki Tsunoda" - Daniel Ricciardo reflects on his poor start to the season

Daniel Ricciardo feels there is something missing with his car and that it's important to find out what's going wrong amid a poor start to 2024. The driver's season has been a complete contrast to what his expectations would have been.

Ricciardo was brought back to the sport with the objective of testing how good he can be. For the Australian, the objective was to show how good he can be and potentially replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull for the 2025 F1 season.

To do that, Daniel Ricciardo had to put together an impressive season that saw him consistently get the better of RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda. In 2024, when he took over from Nyck de Vries, there were signs that he could accomplish his aforementioned goal.

In his very first race back in Hungary, he outqualified Tsunoda and had a strong pace. Ricciardo himself pointed this out in a conversation with the media, including Sportskeeda, as he tried to highlight that the latent pace is still present within the car this year as well. He said:

"I didn’t expect to start the season like this. Budapest last year, I drove the car a day before, and then I outqualify Yuki and have a really strong race – and with no knowledge. And then having a full pre-season and all that, and all the races last year, I honestly thought that this year we would start a lot stronger."

He added:

"So there is that which I don’t understand – not only me, but a few people are wondering why. I think the important thing is that I stay on course. It’s not that my head is filled with nonsense or anything."

Ricciardo began the season by finishing 13th in Bahrain before ending up in 16th and 12th in Saudi Arabia and Australia respectively. He has notably been out-qualified by Tsunoda in all three races

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"I expect it to be a pretty quick turnaround" - Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo remains quite confident of a quick change in fortunes as he feels he will be back to his best once the team resolves the issues with the car. He said during the same interaction:

"I’m asking the team a lot of questions and I think we will have some bits and pieces come on to the car in the next one [or] two races. I expect it to be a pretty quick turnaround and, before you know it, we’ll be doing great again. I do believe it, so we’ll hopefully turn it around."

Daniel Ricciardo's F1 future potentially hinges on how he performs this season. The Aussie has a shot at a seat in Red Bull if he performs well, but could also end up losing his seat at RB if his season unravels.