Daniel Ricciardo believes he might have scored a better result in the Spanish Grand Prix if Renault had told his team mate to let him past at the restart.

When the Safety Car period ended Ricciardo, who had just pitted for fresh tyres, was behind Nico Hulkenberg , who was on 10-lap-older rubber. Ricciardo said he had a better chance of tackling the cars ahead and the team should have considered giving him priority.

“I think where we missed out was the restart,” said Ricciardo. “We lost again track position pitting and then we fell behind Nico. He was on a used tyre, I was on a new.

“We had a chance that first lap honestly to attack the guys in front but we were told we were able to fight. I couldn’t really see him advancing with that tyre as much as I could with min.

“So again we’ll see now, sort it out if again, strategically, we could’ve maximised one car over the other.”

Ricciardo admitted he was disappointed to have finished outside the points. Earlier in the race he passed Carlos Sainz Jnr, who went on to finish ahead of him in the top 10.

“I’m frustrated to see Carlos in eighth,” said Ricciardo. “We had him at the end of the first stint and then we fitted a hard, he fitted a medium and he passed us that out-lap. And then obviously look at where he finished and where we did.

“I think we had his pace today. To be honest we under-achieved the result the car was capable of.

“It’s just little things. With this midifeld it’s so tight. With a small maybe lack of perfection we miss potentially four points. We’ve got to try and do better, try and figure out what we can executive and understand why we fitted the hard instead of the hard instead of the medium and if that was us being too cautious then let’s not be cautious.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season