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For the second successive year, Daniel Ricciardo's dreams of winning the Monaco Grand Prix have likely been shattered by an error on the part of his Red Bull Racing team.
One year removed from his tyres not being ready for a pit stop — when he was leading the 2016 race and seemingly headed for victory — a timing mistake cost the Australian in qualifying on the street circuit.
His team sent him out for his final qualifying run in traffic on Saturday, directly behind team-mate Max Verstappen and returning McLaren driver Jenson Button.
There was a large gap behind Ricciardo, 20 seconds in fact, to Sergio Perez in his Force India. The mistake left a disappointed Ricciardo pondering "why" yet again.
"We needed a clear out lap to push and warm the tyres up," Riccardo said of his second stint on track in Q3.
"The first attempt … the lap was pretty scrappy and the tyres weren't quite there and we made a few adjustments and thought, 'give it a go'.
"But we came out in traffic so I couldn't push on the last run, on the out lap, and it seemed like we had 20 seconds to Perez behind me and they put me out just behind Max and he was on a build lap, so he wasn't even going that quick.
"And then we caught Jenson as well but there was 20 seconds behind me, so why we put me out in traffic when we knew we needed a hard out lap, was a pretty obvious mistake."
That mistake meant Ricciardo could do little but watch as Valtteri Bottas in his Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari and Verstappen all bettered his time, pushing him to fifth on the grid.
Starting from fifth in Monaco might as well mean being at the back in terms of Riccardo's hopes of winning the race and joining Jack Brabham and Mark Webber as Australian victors.
Not since 1996's rain-soaked Monaco Grand Prix has a driver won from anywhere but the front two rows. On that occasion, Frenchman Olivier Panis survived a demolition derby to win in his Lugier Mugen Honda. Only three cars finished.
The rain will not come for Ricciardo, with sunny skies forecast. While he refused to really hammer his team, he was incredibly frustrated.
"It seems like sometimes the intensity of Monaco makes you lose a bit of concentration and make some pretty obvious errors," Ricciardo said.
"It's not intentional, but today is just frustrating … and this track is an opportunity for us to do better.
"I think we could have challenged everyone but it means nothing saying it now because we're not there but we were very far from the potential, so that's the frustrating part."
AAP
Topics: formula-1, motor-sports, sport, france