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Ricciardo finished 13th in the race, two spots up from his grid position, one of those a result of George Russell’s retirement.
The Australian ended the 52-lap race four places back from his RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese driver faring better but also battling for pace.
It left Ricciardo scratching his head as he tried to understand the lack of pace following the Silverstone race.
“Hopefully there’s a big hole in my car that I haven’t see yet, and that’s the reason why we’re really slow,” admitted the 35-year-old.
“We honestly, just as a team, for sure we struggle here.
“Looking at the Williams at the end on that stint, and [Logan] Sargeant pulled away from me and I believe [Alex] Albon came and passed [Yuki] Tsunoda.
“Yuki got a point, he did well, but I think as a team we weren’t very competitive this weekend.”
Following qualifying, Ricciardo was left frustrated by operational decisions which he felt left him unable to maximise his potential on Saturday.
Earlier in the weekend, he was optimistic that he’d found solutions to a lack of pace in Friday practice.
Then, he spoke of a lack of load, a complaint he reiterated following the race after being left surprised by his pace deficit.
“I certainly struggled more in the race. I’m still not completely sure why,” he confessed.
“There was moments the engineer was telling me, I think I was about eight-tenths off, and I was quite surprised to hear that because I felt like I just crossed the line and did a good lap.
“So yeah, a little bit probably lost in terms of where that pace lies.
“Fast forwarding to the end, or even the start where it was dry, yeah, struggling, struggled for, for sure, grip and balance.
“But I think these circuits had exposed us a little bit and the other teams have made some good updates,” he added.
“Why I struggled more than, for the most part, more than Yuki today, yeah, try and have a look.”
What had Ricciardo flummoxed is that the car was not ill-tempered, it simply lacked pace.
“My engineer asked me where, what am I missing? What do I need? And I felt like I was saying, like, the balance and stuff was actually okay, feel like we’re just lacking load,” Ricciardo explained.
“That’s why, when I heard the laptimes of the others, I was quite confused because I did the lap, and the lap felt pretty clean – a few little things, but felt decent.
“I was close to the potential the car, and that’s when I was like, I don’t really have an answer right now.
“Watching the other cars in front, I felt the high-speed they were really able to pull away a little bit more.
“So probably my explanation [is] we’re lacking a bit of load.
“Downforce is king, but I think there’s still things we missed today, or my assumption is we missed some things, just with our car and optimising it,” he added.
“We have to, looking forward, make everything better but right now with what we had… probably still with set-up, there’s maybe a couple of things myself and the team are maybe not quite grasping.”
