Daniel Ricciardo explains why P11 in F1 Japanese GP is "frustrating but also encouraging"

Daniel Ricciardo believes that the eleventh place qualifying result has led to mixed feelings despite the narrow margin. Speaking to the on-site media ahead of the Japanese GP, the RB driver said he was expecting more from his qualifying session despite the improvement.

In Q1, Daniel Ricciardo managed to out-qualify teammate Yuki Tsunoda but got knocked out in Q2 by a margin of 0.055 seconds. Compared to the last three race weekends, the gap between the RB duo had narrowed significantly. He was replaced by Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa for FP1, and FP2 was interrupted by rain, which did not allow any of the drivers a proper run.

With the lack of running in FP1 and FP2, the Australian was left with only one FP3 session to prepare for qualifying. Despite his expectations for more, the current result places him in a better position on the grid compared to previous race weekends.

Asked if it was a better qualification than the last one in Melbourne, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Yeah, it's a mix. Personally, obviously there's that frustration where you just miss out. When I could see on the board I was 10th, but I knew there was a couple of cars to come. So it was close and that's frustrating, but it's also encouraging because it has been certainly for whatever reason, a trickier start to the year. I think with that though I also can't take anything away from Yuki."

"I think he's also been driving very well, So it's probably two parts to that. But yeah, look I don't want to use yesterday like, why I'm half a tenth off. You know, it's not because of yesterday, but it certainly made today a bit tricky for us. So I think in those circumstances we also did quite well to recover what we did.”

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Daniel Ricciardo believes that there were positives to take away from the Japanese GP qualifying

Daniel Ricciardo believes the qualifying result was encouraging despite the lack of running on Friday in free practice. He reckoned that his engineer Pierre expected more from the session but was more realistic.

Despite not attempting any long run simulation around Suzuka, the Australian driver was positive for the race ahead. In the last three sessions, the qualifying gap between the RB drivers has been approximately two to three tenths of a second, where Tsunoda had the upper hand.

Asked about his turnaround in performance despite no Friday running, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Yeah, so I think from that as well, that's encouraging. So yeah, I think tomorrow I actually feel quite good. You know, I haven't really done a long run, but try to keep it positive. You know, I know Pierre my engineer was, I could feel he felt like me, but he was also trying to be realistic and appreciate that we actually did quite a good session. So I think we just used these little smiles and positives now going into tomorrow. It's semi -painful, but I think there is also some satisfaction on today's result.”

Despite the pressure mounting to turn around his performance and excessive criticism about his form, the reduced qualifying margin with his teammate is a relief for Daniel Ricciardo. While it is too early to judge his performance across three weekends on completely different circuits, Suzuka has been a better outlier due to its conventional track characteristics.

Still in the hunt for his first points, the former Red Bull Racing driver was optimistic about his chances in the race ahead. RB have currently upgraded both their cars with a new floor in Japan.