Daniel Ricciardo's Sunday afternoon of racing went from a difficult race to a huge uphill battle after the Red Bull driver retired from qualifying with suspected turbo failure.
The Aussie was fastest in the first batch of runs in Q1 but grinded to a halt on Wellington Straight, bringing out the red flags in the process.
All signs appeared to point to a turbor failure on the RB13's Renault engine, sustaining the team's reliability worries following Max Verstappen's recent engine woes.
"It isn’t sure yet, but it’s suspected," explained Ricciardo.
"It sounded a little bit sick, that was the first thing. I lost a bit of power and then I heard some weird turbo noises.
"I thought I could make it back to the pits but then everything went off. Definitely a big failure of some sort and we couldn’t stay for the session, so disappointing."
Given his decent speed early on in qualifying, Ricciardo was obviously disappointed to be sidelined.
"We know these conditions could’ve given us a bit more opportunity. We were quick at the beginning there," says Ricciardo.
"Obviously tomorrow is another day, I’m just disappointed not to have shown more of what we could do in qualifying.
"But yeah, tomorrow is where the points are. We have some work ahead of us to get back into them but until we can it is what it is.
"I thought five grid places was bad but we’re definitely at the back now. Well, Alonso’s starting at like Stowe now."
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