Dejected Daniel Ricciardo responds to ‘all the s**t going on’ as Red Bull rumors swirl

Heading into the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, some of the biggest talking points have centered around VCARB driver Daniel Ricciardo — and whether or not the driver will have a place on the Formula 1 grid after the Singapore Grand Prix.

A dejected Ricciardo tried to make light of the situation with the media after qualifying, but it wasn’t easy while he discussed his “very pessimistic day” that saw him knocked out of the session in Q1 while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda made it all the way through to Q3.

Daniel Ricciardo: ‘With all the s**t going on, I honestly felt OK’

Sometime between FP3 and qualifying, things fell apart for the No. 3 VCARB driver of Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian admitted that he was struggling with the soft tires but felt during quali that he wasn’t able to maximize on that promised performance.

“We didn’t really change much,” Ricciardo told media, referring to any alterations made to his VCARB machine between practice and qualifying.

“Obviously we were in a good place yesterday, so we were pretty upbeat about it. [We] weren’t chasing our tail. And honestly, the medium this morning was good.

“I felt like we started off on the same foot as yesterday, but then I put the soft on, and I was nowhere.

“So we did a bit of fine-tuning for quali, and we thought we would be OK, but I just didn’t feel comfortable on the soft.

“It was miserable because we were somewhere yesterday, genuinely.

“There wasn’t any big mistake or anything, but I knew when I crossed the line, that wasn’t quick. I could just tell. It just didn’t feel that nice.

“This morning you could say, oh, that soft didn’t work. But we had three of them today, and we were just not competitive on any of them.”

Ricciardo pinpointed some concerns with Pirelli’s soft tires, which he says are “a bit more fragile in hotter climates.” But there was still no indication that he’d be so off the pace.

“We were a bit puzzled,” he said. “I would say, if FP3 was qualifying, then I would have said something more like, ‘That soft was s**t because it didn’t bite, it didn’t lock in.’

“But the fact that I struggled on all three softs I used, maybe there’s something else.”

Race engineer Pierre Hamelin allegedly asked Ricciardo if he felt he knew during the out lap that the car just wouldn’t be quick, but Ricciardo denied that there was anything obviously wrong.

“We’ll try and figure it out, but Q1 sucks, especially when you don’t expect to be there,” Ricciardo said.

“Obviously some races, we’ve expected to be here, but after yesterday, we didn’t think this would even be possible with a shit lap.”

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Making matters all the more challenging for Ricciardo is the fact that his future in Formula 1 has been very much in doubt. Coming into the weekend, Helmut Marko was vocal about the fact that Liam Lawson could be taking over Ricciardo’s VCARB seat after the Singapore GP. It’s natural that Ricciardo would be looking for a strong result to secure his future.

“It would be nice just to leave a statement, but obviously the Q1 thing is like, that sucks,” he said.

“With all the s**t going on, I honestly felt okay. I felt like we would be good today. So that’s why I’m more just like, how did we end up [out] in Q1?”

Coming into the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend earlier this year, similar rumors had swirled that Ricciardo may find himself out of a seat over the summer break if he didn’t pick up the pace — but the Australian was able to perform well enough to quash those rumors for a while.

Coming into Singapore, though, Ricciardo feels differently.

“I think there was still some optimism in Hungary,” he said, “and after Q3, you feel a bit better.

“I try to be optimistic, but today was a very pessimistic day.”

When it comes to race day, Ricciardo had admitted that he’s looking for “a well-timed safety car” in he wants to make progress up the field.

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