Daniel Ricciardo has no answers to why he was nearly one-second off Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen in qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix.
The Australian struggled for pace and grip throughout the session as he ultimately qualified down in seventh -- five places behind Verstappen who is set to start alongside polesitter Sebastian Vettel on the front row of the grid. Ricciardo was beaten by Force India's Esteban Ocon and only just outperformed Nico Hulkenberg's Renault.
When asked after qualifying why he struggled for grip, Ricciardo was left confused and did not understand why his car did not handle as well as it did earlier in the weekend.
"It was about... just being confused and not understanding what was going on," Ricciardo told Sky Sports. "In terms of grip, we didn't touch the car, even from yesterday we left the car as it was, and every time we left the pits it just had no grip.
"We tried in Q3, we tried experimenting, doing an extra warm-up to try and give the tyres something, but it just seemed like what I left the box with was the level of grip I had throughout the whole of qualifying. You know, sometimes, you get one set of tyres that you can't turn on or don't warm up properly, so you might lose a bit of time, but every run was the same story so.
"I'm super frustrated and confused but I'm sure we'll find something, but it still doesn't make the session any easier to go through it was just... we couldn't really do anything."
Track temperatures increased by approximately 20 degrees from FP3 and the end of qualifying. Ricciardo doesn't believe this was a factor in his struggles and he still remains confident of fighting for the podium if Red Bull can get to the bottom of why his pace disappeared.
"I think the start compared to the morning was close to 20 [degrees] or something. That doesn't really explain the problems we had, if anything that should've helped our warm-up.
"If we figure it out and get the car back that we had for the rest of the weekend, I think we can still race up to a podium tomorrow. Understanding the last hour is what we've got to do because... obviously the adrenaline is slowly coming down now... I was... for sure I was angry, but just helpless, helpless in that qualifying."