Ricciardo takes blame for Q3 crash

Daniel Ricciardo took the blame for his crash in the final part of qualifying that limited him to 10th on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix.

The home favorite was pushing on his first flying lap in Q3 when he lost control at Turn 14 – three corners from the end of the lap – and spun backward into the barrier. The incident brought out the red flags and left Ricciardo bottom of the top-10 shootout, and when asked if he knows what happened the Red Bull driver replied: "I do know but I don't!

"I know in terms of I just lost the rear. But it was a little bit weird. I felt when I turned in the rear was a little bit light, it kind of snapped a bit later. I didn't get the impression that it was going to go. And then it was like, 'Oh yeah, it is going.' I tried to catch it but it was too late.

"I had a quick look at the replay and at the data, and I was pushing but I actually didn't enter the corner any quicker than I did on my Q2 lap, so there was nothing... I was not over-driving to an extent where I felt like I influenced it more than I should have. Just a tough one. You are pushing. We are still trying to get on top of the car and all that, and still a bit of learning to do. But no excuse but nothing really stood out. I didn't have a problem. There was no puncture or anything strange like that, I just lost the rear.

"Because we have quite a bit more downforce on the cars, because they are more loaded, when they do go, they seem to be a bit harder to bring back."

While Ricciardo was left frustrated by his error, he is more concerned by the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes as he was over 0.8s down on the fastest lap at the time of his crash, while teammate Max Verstappen ended up over a second off the pace in qualifying.

"We work on being competitive and stuff. Personally, coming into the weekend I was hopeful that it will be good but I've learned to disregard the word 'expectation' over the last few years. Coming in here we thought, 'If we are within half a second that is OK for where we are at the moment, and we can build from that.' But we are more than a second off.

"Max's lap was pretty tidy, and I don't think he could have got much more out of that in Q3. It is not like we are leaving a lot on the table from our point of view. It is a tough one for now. For sure Ferrari and Mercedes are quicker. I look at the onboards and it is like the rear is more planted. It seems like they have nailed a bit more downforce at the moment. We still obviously have a bit of work to do."