Daniel Ricciardo narrowly missed out on the final podium place to team-mate Max Verstappen despite a strong showing during Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix.
Following the restart in the race's early stages, Ricciardo found himself in second place although he would have been hurt as Verstappen caught and passed him with an expert overtake at turn six.
The Australian put his lack of pace down to an absence of grip yielded by his Pirelli super-soft tyre: "In the first stint we lost out, we struggled a lot keeping the tyre. Once the restart got going we struggled a lot with the front-left. I felt like I was just getting eaten up, but there wasn't much more I felt I could do with what I had."
In the closing stages and on fresher tyres, Ricciardo hunted down his team-mate and looked set to pull off a move, however the Australian was left feeling frustrated as he failed to get past the tenacious Verstappen.
"I would have loved to have made it more of a battle. I tried to get close. I felt like I got close, but then suffered a bit with the tyres. Even with DRS, I never really got into a massively good position to overtake."
Ricciardo only had a few half chances at a pass and eventually ran out of laps and was forced to settle for fourth position.
Alex Griffin
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
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