Ricciardo: Renault need to figure out why the weekend was so tough

Ricciardo started in P12 and that's where the Aussie finished in Austria, with Nico Hulkenberg finishing a place behind his team-mate in P13. Ricciardo admitted he struggled for grip all weekend in the soaring hot conditions in Austria.

"It was a tough weekend," Ricciardo admitted. "From lap one today, it was tricky and I struggled for grip. We improved as the race progressed, managed a decent stint on the Softs at the end, but it was probably a bit too late.

"We need to figure out why this weekend was so tough. There's stuff we can improve, but I won't put it all down to the car. I'll look at myself and see what I can do better as well.

"Something wasn't right this weekend and Nico shared the same feelings too. We'll do our best to figure it out and get on top of it."

Team principal Cyril Abiteboul shared similar feelings to Ricciardo: "Clearly, it's not a good weekend. Although we had the pace to be slightly higher up on the grid, the track exposed weaknesses of our car, similar to previous races but in a more exacerbated fashion this weekend.

"We need to identify if there was anything specific with set-ups or simply a feature of the chassis on which we must work."