Daniel Ricciardo baffled by qualifying mystery in Styrian Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo’s qualifying pace has once again come under the microscope as his teammate Lando Norris put the Aussie veteran to shame.

Norris will start in third on the grid after a stunning qualifying session and making the most of Valtteri Bottas’ three-place grid penalty, while Ricciardo will start way back in 13th.

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Bottas finished second fastest overall but will drop to fifth pushing Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton onto the front row of the grid alongside pole sitter Max Verstappen. Bottas was handed the penalty after a practice incident that saw him spin out after a pit stop.

Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez will move onto the second row of the grid beside Norris.

It was another frustrating performance from Ricciardo who was at risk of elimination throughout the first qualifying session and never looked like he was going close to pushing into Q3.

Norris was half a second faster than Ricciardo throughout qualifying, as the Aussie’s McLaren struggles were once again laid bare.

All season the discussion has chased Ricciardo over his performances with McLaren as he has been far from his best since the move from Renault.

Ricciardo may be a decade Norris’ senior in age but the Brit’s experience in the McLaren has been apparent from the first race of the season.

Ricciardo out-qualified Norris three of the first four races this season but the 21-year-old is now on a four race streak, and will start 10 places ahead of Ricciardo.

Ricciardo’s weekend has been very up and down with a P12 in the first practice session before finishing second behind Max Verstappen in the second session on Friday.

Saturday’s practice was a shocker as he wound up in 18th.

Ricciardo barely survived Q1 in 15th, just 0.03 of a second ahead of Williams’ Nicholas Latifi in the elimination zone.

Norris was third in the session and only did one lap, winding up just 0.095 of a second behind Max Verstappen.

Ricciardo was a further 0.538 back.

In Q2, Norris was third fastest while Ricciardo could only manage 13th, and only because Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel had his final lap time deleted for exceeding track limits.

“Where’s his pace gone from yesterday?” Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle asked in commentary.

Norris went second fastest in the Q2 session, finishing another half a second ahead of the Aussie.

Ricciardo was clearly disappointed by the result but still seems perplexed by the issue.

“I don’t have much of an answer for today but we’ll figure it out,” Ricciardo said over team radio.

His engineer attempted to help the Aussie keep his head up, adding: “Don’t worry mate, this is a Sunday race circuit, there’s plenty of action to go on tomorrow, we’ll fight back from here.”

Speaking to Sky Sports, Ricciardo seemed to be at a loss as to what had happened.

“We just lost a lot of speed overnight,” he said. “It’s not even quali that we were slow, it was already this morning. We put the car on track and we were quite a bit off. It’s another session where we are a little bit scratching our heads.

“It was a long way off — at times, it was a second or something. It’s a bit strange. Obviously yesterday was strong and encouraging so I wouldn’t say there is many answers at the moment why we struggled so much today but we’ll figure it out and look forward to tomorrow now. Definitely didn’t expect to be here after yesterday.”

Ricciardo admitted that he didn’t think they had a perfect car on Friday but that “the lap time came”.

He also said that during quali: “I felt like I was just driving to the limit of the car, I couldn’t go faster because I would just run off the track. So I felt like I was pushing it but it was just that we were slower pretty much everywhere.”

As for if he’ll get his elbows out in the main race: “It’s all I can do,” he replied.

Styrian Grand Prix Starting Grid

Row 1: Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

Row 2: Lando Norris (McLaren) – Sergio Perez (Red Bull)

Row 3: Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)* – Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)

Row 4: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)

Row 5: Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) – Fernando Alonso (Alpine)

Row 6: George Russell (Williams) – Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)

Row 7: Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) – Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)

Row 8: Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) – Nicholas Latifi (Williams)

Row 9: Esteban Ocon (Alpine) – Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)

Row 10: Mick Schumacher (Haas) – Nikita Mazepin (Haas)

* Three-place grid penalty after practice incident.