Daniel Ricciardo has emphasized his weakness in high-speed bends, where he is losing to his RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

Tsunoda has had a strong start to the 2024 season, gaining points in two races, while Ricciardo is yet to reach the points in his full-time return to the grid.

After qualifying in Australia, the eight-time grand prix winner admitted that he could see where Tsunoda was faster, but he couldn’t access or deliver what the Japanese racer was doing in the car.

In an attempt to discover solutions, Ricciardo detailed how the team actually slowed his car, creating a vicious spiral.

“I am struggling to feel the car in the high-speed, and it is drawing some of the confidence out of me,” Ricciardo told media ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, where he crashed out on the first lap.

“We’ve tried to look for stability, and sometimes stable is safer and slower and at the time, I thought it made sense, but in hindsight, we just ended up making the car slower, period.”

In Australia, Ricciardo was completely outperformed by Tsunoda, who finished seventh and the Perth native 12th.

He admitted to tangling himself in knots.

“It is just trying to understand how to keep it on the edge, but in a place I can still feel comfortable,” he said.

“Last year [Tsunoda] was an understeer car guy and I was an oversteer guy and that is what I was looking for, and to be fair, he’s come up more towards what I wanted last year.”

“But in Melbourne, we kind of went opposite ways and that’s where I started thinking: ‘Maybe we need to not get too lost.’

“We went through quite a lot post-Melbourne, and it is one of those where on a race weekend, you don’t have the luxury of time with a couple of hours between sessions, but maybe some changes are not the right direction at the time.”