"I'm not confident with the car we had": Daniel Ricciardo admits lack of comfort with the car in F1 Saudi Arabian GP qualifying

Daniel Ricciardo has admitted to a lack of confidence in his current car after a disappointing result in the qualifying ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP. Speaking to media, including Sportskeeda, the Visa Cash App RB driver said it was difficult to be optimistic about his performance, and refused to make any optimistic predictions going into the race on Saturday, March 9.

Keeping his employer Red Bull Racing happy is the key for Ricciardo upon return with their sister team. However, consistently outperforming his teammate Yuki Tsunoda or maximizing the potential of the VCARB01 remains key to deciding his future in the sport.

Asked by Sportskeeda if it were better to outpace his teammate by half a second the next time around to keep his employer happy, the Australian’s face lit up but he remained realistic. The gap in the qualifying performance baffled him and he admitted being in discomfort with the current car.

Answering Sportskeeda’s question after the qualifying session, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Oh, I don't even know. I don't even know. Look, I obviously you always want to impress whoever’s thing. But I think the frustrating thing now is that it's last week, first race, I said I made some mistakes, so I was frustrated with myself, but confident where the lap time was. We're standing here right now."

"I'm not confident with the car we had where we could have got it. So that's that's really all that's on my mind now and of course I will I'm sure there's some places I could improve so I'm not saying I'm perfect. But today fundamentally definitely felt more the other way around as opposed to last week," he added.

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Daniel Ricciardo is unsure about his chances at the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP

Daniel Ricciardo believes that it is difficult to pinpoint a particular area of performance where he lacked in the qualifying session ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP. Asked about the tyre sensitivity, he said he wasn’t able to maximize the potential of his car at any point in the qualifying.

Thinking of the race ahead, the 34-year-old preferred not to make any predictions, as he wanted to dissect the qualifying performance. He felt there was a need to be realistic with the pace of the car and then anticipate his chances for the race.

Asked if the tyres were sensitive around the Jeddah circuit, Daniel Ricciardo replied:

“I mean there's look as always they are sensitive. But I don't think we did anything even compared to Q1, nothing too crazy. And even just doing the same you would just gain normally with track evolution and all of the simple things. You kind of you don't even need to try harder the lap time just comes and it just didn't. So look we will obviously look into it. But standing here now, I don't feel I did or missed anything with tyres or warm -up. So yeah it's, it's one of those sessions where it's just yeah.”

Asked if he was hopeful of recovering from the result of the qualifying, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“It's really hard now to think about the race. I think, obviously, if we show the pace we showed today, then no, no, we can't or we can hope, but I think we have to be realistic. But I don't want to be too down. I mean, also this track is there's so much load and you hit some kerbs. I don't know, maybe there is something that we damaged on the kerb or something, let's see. Hopeful that maybe we find something like that. But yeah, for now, a bit early to think too positively about the race.”

The optics of being beaten by a younger teammate like Yuki Tsunoda by half a second doesn’t help the cause. Making it worse was Ferrari's F2 driver Ollie Bearman, who stepped in for Carlos Sainz and managed to outpace Daniel Ricciardo.

The disappointing performance in qualifying is definitely one that will make the Australian reflect upon where he can improve in the future. He seemed baffled by the gap and was in disbelief trying to dissect his performance and the pitfalls.