Ricciardo responds to suggestions that Max’s qualifying performances down to ‘bigger balls’

Daniel Ricciardo has endured a painful season in 2018, not posing a stiff challenge to Mercedes and Ferrari and failing to match up to the level of his own teammate as well.

The major worry for Ricciardo has been during qualifying, where Verstappen lead the head-to-head 13-2, in qualifying sessions where both drivers have set times.

The Australian believes that the problems with qualifying have persisted since last year and despite making some improvements, things haven’t quite been smooth sailing.

“Through last year I wasn’t that happy with my qualifying,” said Ricciardo.

“I thought the start of this year we started to improve some things.

“I haven’t really got everything out of it, or maybe Max is just getting a lot better, I don’t know. I’m not done yet.” he added.

Daniel Ricciardo is clearly and understandably frustrated with fifteenth place. #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/snKs1rNgAo

— Vincent Bruins (@VincentJBruins) October 6, 2018

Ricciardo believes that the way he sets up his car is the major reason for the lack of one lap pace, as opposed to some glitch in his driving style.

He has also emphasised on the fact that it is not like Max has the ‘bigger balls’ and is doing more on corners.

“Honestly, not taking anything away from Max – for sure he’s fast and he’s been driving well – it’s not necessarily that he [had] bigger balls in that corner or whatever.

“I feel like we kind of got left a bit last year as well. Some qualifying [sessions] I’m like ‘should’ve done that’ in terms of ‘should have gone up on the front wing six clicks instead of one or two’. It’s kind of been stuff in hindsight.

“I’d like to be more pro-active on some tings but more set-up. I feel just a lot of the time we understand it but it’s too late. I guess we’re still learning. But obviously he’s been getting on top of it more than I have.” he concluded.