Ricciardo came home from cold feet: 'Shouldn't expect the world'

AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo drove his second Grand Prix in Belgium after taking over from Nyck de Vries. The Australian had a difficult Sunday and was fed up with his pace, he told GPblog and others.

During the sprint race, the eight-time race winner came out better. He finished tenth but did not get a point for that, as only the top eight get points during the shortened race. During the Grand Prix, he had a much harder time, which wasn't helped by starting from P19. Ricciardo lost his fastest time during qualifying due to exceeding track limits.

"Our speed felt limited, even in the clean air. I couldn't really produce any grip, so I kept 'overheating' my tyres, so I kept sliding. It was a bit of a tough race," says the man who eventually finished 16th. "I want to get back on track soon to see if we can learn something from it. I don't want to be too discouraged, of course. As well as there are only dry sessions all weekend. So it could be something simple would set up, we went the wrong way, and that's that, but yeah, I just wish I could have been able to attack a little more," Ricciardo sighed.

However, the Perth man was happy to have another full race behind his name. "I was able to learn a lot again and pass on feedback to the team again," he said. His teammate fared better: "I saw Yuki got 10th, so it looks like he had a decent race. So try to learn a bit from that as well." Ricciardo remains realistic, despite his disappointment: "I'm always gonna be quite hard on myself. But yeah, I shouldn't be expecting the world at the moment. So all in all, I think it's all learning."