Ricciardo “clearly” has one more step ahead of him to catch up with McLaren F1 team-mate Norris | F1

Ricciardo retired from Q2 and fought for his performance all weekend at the Losail International Circuit.

A bug in the fuel system ruined his chances of a strong result, but Ricciardo acknowledged that he has yet to adapt to the ‘McLaren style’.

“Ultimately, such long and medium-fast corners are the challenges for our car,” said Ricciardo. “The McLaren style is the only style here to get through these corners quickly. I think Lando is definitely doing a better job in these corners.

“I’m still not quite clear. It’s the way you go into the corner and combine braking with turning. I’m trying to get the car to do something and it’s still spinning, but it’s not coming around the corner as quickly. It’s only half a tenth, but half a tenth in those long corners adds up to three or four tenths.

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“So it really is exactly that. It’s definitely a weakness of the car, but ultimately still the weakness that I can’t get the car to run well in limited areas.”

Since Ricciardo’s victory at the Italian Grand Prix, he has only scored points twice.

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McLaren’s decline in form has resulted in him falling to 39.5 points behind Ferrari in the race for third place in the constructors’ championship.

The Australian says it’s been a “downward spiral” since the United States Grand Prix.

“But since Austin it’s been a downward spiral. I don’t want to be too negative with that, ”he added. “I don’t think I failed this weekend, I only missed half a tenth in some of those key corners, and of course that adds up.

“Three and a half tenths and qualifying are not what I want. Gone are the days when I got seven or eight tenths off. From then on I have developed further, but there is clearly still a lot of route-specific work to be done. “

Ricciardo believes he has made significant strides since the beginning of the year but still has a lot to do to be on par with his Twammate

“I can see the difference in driving and why I’m running into some of these problems,” Ricciardo explained. “If it were easy, I would have perfected it by now. I think Lando drives very well. With all questions about him this year he has proven to everyone that he is at the highest level. But the three years with the same car also helped him to classify that.

“I definitely think I’ve improved my style since the beginning of the year. But there is clearly one more step to be taken and some tracks that he can do better than me. “