Ricciardo: Renault ‘underachieved’ in Spanish GP

Daniel Ricciardo feels Renault underachieved in Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix after missing another opportunity to record points.

Ricciardo, who qualified inside the top 10 but dropped three place due to a grid penalty for reversing into Daniil Kvyat in Baku, ended up getting stuck behind the McLaren of Carlos Sainz for much of the opening stint.

Despite complaining he had “no pace” throughout, Sainz was able to finish eighth, while Ricciardo ended up outside of the points in 12th, leaving him frustrated as Renault failed to score points for the second consecutive race.

“I'm frustrated, to be honest with that,” said Ricciardo after the race.

“I see Carlos was eighth, we had him at the end of the first stint and then we fitted a Hard, he fitted a Medium and he passed us on the outlap. And obviously, look at where he finished and where he did with his pace.

“To be honest I think we underachieved with the result that the car is capable of. It's just little things, and this midfield is so tight, a small lack of perfection and we potentially miss four points.

“We've just got to try and do better, I guess, try and figure out what we can execute and understand, why we fitted the hard instead of the medium, and if that was us being too cautious then let's not be cautious.”

Ricciardo carried out a two-stop strategy but ended up returning to the circuit behind his recovering teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who was one-stopping. Ricciardo felt he could have challenged for points had he not been bottled up behind the German.

“I think where we missed out was the restart, we lost track position again [by] pitting, and then we fell behind Nico and he was on a used tyre - I was on a new - and I think we had a chance on that first lap to attack the guys in front,” he explained.

“We were told we were able to fight, but yeah, I couldn't really see him advancing with that tyre as I could with mine. Again we'll see now, sort it out if strategically we could have maximised one car over the other.”

Renault has now slipped to eighth place in the constructors’ championship, after recording just 12 points from the opening five rounds.