Daniel Ricciardo says he felt ‘heartbroken’ after the Australian could only manage 13th in yesterday’s Styrian Grand Prix.

The Australian, who had shown good pace in the second free practice session, had a troublesome weekend as he failed to make the final part of qualifying for the fourth time this year with a lowly 13th on the grid.

Ricciardo made an excellent start and had moved himself into ninth before technical gremlins saw him plummet down the order to 14th, with Ricciardo only managing a distant 13th and one lap down on the leaders at the checkered flag.

Ricciardo was at a loss for the sudden loss of power as he hopes to rebound for next weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix held at the Red Bull Ring.

“We were sitting pretty, and then all of a sudden we lost power, so all of that position that we gained, I basically just waved them on through. We were able to fix it on track, but then it was too late and I was back in the mess I did well to get out of. It is painful to see all the work undone when you are trying to fix it and everyone is just going past you.”

"The weekend obviously went from bad to worse. I am looking forward to getting out of here and coming back next week with a fresh approach. It is obviously heartbreaking for me and disheartening but I am not the only one who feels this pain and the race, from lap one after a bad one yesterday, it starts to look really promising.”

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl later explained why Ricciardo lost all of those on-track positions when speaking to media-selected sections, including Motorlat. 

“There was a control issue on the power unit side which affected the power delivery for half a lap, and he could recover than with some steering wheel switches, but due to that he lost a couple of positions and was stuck in traffic and his race was pretty much over.”