By Andrew Cutler
March 11 2012

Honestly, I'm not sure which sank further; Daniel Ricciardo's car as it was swallowed up by the rest of the grid in the opening lap of the Bahrain GP, or my heart as I watched it happen. Then came the icing on the cake: Contact with another car (maybe it was Daniel who punctured Kovi's tire?) put his front wing assembly out of action, forcing an early pit stop

This put the Aussie well to the back of the pack, requiring him to adopt the mindset that his team mate, Jean-Eric Vergne, had started the day with: methodically pick up as many postions as possible.

Unfortunately, as at Shanghai the Sunday before, this proved to be a difficult task. Having started the race from the 19th grid spot, Vergne only managed to work his way forward two spots by a combination of his own driving and pit strategy: He would be 'gifted' three more spots due to tire/mechanical issues forcing the early retirements of both Williams drivers and Jensen Button's McLaren.

Jean-Eric would finish 14th. Daniel would follow just behind in the 15th spot.

Here are the team's post-race press comments:

Jean-Eric Vergne:

“It’s the same pattern as in China, in that I manage to have a good pace in the race, but I’m slow in qualifying. We must find a solution to this, because if we can start further forward with the pace we have, then we should see a more positive result on Sunday. ... I need to analyse what is not working for me in qualifying. "

Daniel Ricciardo:

“That was not what I was hoping for after starting from sixth on the grid. The opening lap changed my whole race. My initial launch off the line wasn’t great and after that I seemed to go backwards, which made for a very frustrating afternoon. The front wing damage also made matters worse. I had a good chance to have a strong race today, but losing all those places at the start cost me dear. I need to be hard on myself now and find out what I did wrong to make sure I don’t do it again. It was a race to forget.”

Franz Tost (Team Principal):

"On the race track today, we started with Daniel Ricciardo in sixth place on the grid, but failed to finish in the points. He had some problems at the start, losing several places and making contact with another car, at the moment we are not sure which one. This meant he had to come in for a new nose section and after that, his race was compromised as he lost too much time, eventually finishing fifteenth.

"Having started from seventeenth, after 57 laps, Jean-Eric finished one place ahead of his team-mate, having produced some acceptable lap times. Daniel’s performance in qualifying was the only highlight in a weekend that did not live up to our expectations.”