The qualifying at the Styrian Grand Prix proved that even after seven races, Daniel Ricciardo is not completely in sync with his McLaren car. After finishing P2 in FP2, the Aussie driver qualified P13 on Saturday. The lack of pace in qualifying left him scratching his head, especially since his teammate Lando Norris qualified P3.

When asked about his sudden lack of pace on Saturday, Ricciardo just did not have the answer.

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We put the car on track today and we are one second slower: Ricciardo

“I don’t know,” he said when asked what has happened to his speed. “Today is what happened, a bit of a mystery, actually,” said Ricciardo to summarize his performance.

According to Motorsport, the Honey Badger did not know why he was so slow in qualifying. However, he pointed out that quali was not a one-off event, he was slow all the way through Saturday; Ricciardo had finished P17 in FP3 after not getting a clean run in the session.

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“But obviously we were pretty comfortable with everything. We put the car on track today and we are one second slower, pretty much. Then qualifying, I think was a product also of this morning, we were just off the pace.” said the Australian.

Ricciardo continued, “We fine-tuned a little bit. But nothing crazy, nothing which should explain being so far off today. And you obviously change the car to try to be quicker! So we definitely didn’t expect this today.”

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Can Daniel Ricciardo bounce back on Sunday?

Daniel Ricciardo needs to pull off some trademark overtaking moves to get into points at the Styrian Grand Prix. But the Aussie is still upbeat as he posted on his Instagram story. He accepted that the fact he lacked pace at qualifying and summarize his performance as “non bueno.”

Ricciardo’s performance this season has been a rollercoaster. While he understandably had a poor start to the season with his new team, he showed signs of improvement here and there, but to no avail.

Do you think the Honey Badger can show reliable pace in the coming weeks? Comment below to let us know.