Ricciardo and RB had demonstrated strong pace on Friday leading to high expectations heading into qualifying around Marina Bay.
However, the Australian struggled for pace on the soft tyres and was instead one of the first five drivers out of the session.
It was a bitter blow as speculation surrounding his future swirls.
“I try to be optimistic, but today was a very pessimistic day,” Ricciardo said after the session.
“I might go drown in my ice bath. You’ll find me there tomorrow, floating.”
While Ricciardo was eliminated early, Yuki Tsunoda progressed to Qualifying 3, showing what was possible with the car.
Why the eight-time race winner wasn’t able to deliver the same performance is a mystery.
Pace on the medium tyre and through practice was encouraging, but it all evaporated come qualifying.
“Obviously, we’re in a good place yesterday,” Ricciardo reasoned.
“We were pretty upbeat about it and weren’t chasing our tail.
“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.
“We did a bit of fine-tuning for quali, and we thought would be okay, but I just didn’t feel comfortable on the soft.
“I would say miserable, because we were somewhere yesterday, genuinely, and we didn’t expect… it wasn’t like any big mistakes or anything, but I knew when I crossed the line that wasn’t quick.
“This morning, you could say, oh, maybe that soft didn’t work, but we had three of them today, and we were just more competitive on any of them.”
HIs lack of pace comes at a critical time, with suggestions a decision on his future will be made off the back of Singapore.
While Ricciardo denies an individual result will make or break that decision, he conceded it would have been nice to deliver something more than he did.
“I would be nice to just leave a statement,” he added.
“Obviously the Q1 thing is like, yeah, that sucks.
“I thought with all the shit going on, I honestly felt okay. I felt like it would be good today.
“That’s why I’m more just like, how did we end up in Q1?”
Ricciardo will start tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix from 16th.
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