I Can’t Catch a Break, I’m Fed Up: Ricciardo

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing‘s Daniel Ricciardo feels angry to end qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix down in 15th after a throttle failure from the RB14 caused him to set no lap time.

The Australian’s session ended early when his car began to lose power with a throttle actuator failure before the start of his lap in Q2. He was able to return to the pits and his mechanics got to work assessing the problem.

But Ricciardo’s session went from bad to worse as rain started to hit the track and his mechanics couldn’t fix the issue on time, leaving him out of the session in 15th with no lap time set.

Ricciardo’s frustration was known and heard at the end of the session when walking down to Parc Fermé, the Australian screamed with his crash helmet on.

His failure will leave him starting 15th on the grid whilst team-mate Max Verstappen qualified in third. The Dutch driver has now out qualified Ricciardo in the last eleven races.

The 29 year old thought when he heard his engine not feeling healthy that the issue was terminal when he about to start his qualifying lap.

“As soon as I came through the last chicane to start my fast lap I immediately felt that something was wrong,” said Ricciardo.

“I just didn’t have full power and I could hear the turbo or something wasn’t healthy. I came to the pits and we tried to fix it but I think it’s something terminal.

“Then it started raining, I think if we had got out again and it was raining and I couldn’t get a lap in, then it could have been even more painful.”

Ricciardo’s second half of the season has been a struggle with multiple engine penalties and failures have prevented him from racing at the front and covered up on a strong start to the year where he won both in China and in Monaco.

Red Bull opted to take engine penalties at Monza and Sochi to have a clean run to the end of the season, but the engine issue added more woes from the team and for Ricciardo.

With fifteenth place awaits for the Australian, Ricciardo feels ‘fed up’  and angry that he can’t catch a break from the issues in the second half of the season. He added that he still want to do the best he can do for Red Bull until his departure from the team at the end of the year.

“I just can’t catch a break at the moment and I’m pretty fed up with it,” added Ricciardo.

“I’m doing everything I can and applying myself the best way that I know how to, but it’s not working so hopefully it turns around soon.

“It makes me angry because if it was on me and I was slacking off then it would be different, but I still want to do the best I can for Red Bull until the end of the year and every race is important.”