The Milton Keynes outfit confirmed on Wednesday that Ricciardo – and not his new teammate Max Verstappen – would have the more powerful engine at his disposal this weekend.

And with the team aware that the new unit's early debut would mean one of its drivers would be forced to wait an extra race to use it, Ricciardo said he had little doubt he would be given the nod.

"The new engine thing was discussed," said the Australian. "We were trying to push it for Monaco, and we knew pretty early on that we might have just one.

"It was pretty much the guy leading the championship [who] would have got that, and obviously at the time with Daniil [Kvyat as a teammate] it was looking like I would have got it here anyway.

"Then with Max – as well, probably. That is pretty much that."

Verstappen not being favoured

Having expressed his frustration with his team for not placing him on the optimum two-stop strategy in Spain, Ricciardo underlined that he didn't ever suspect Red Bull was trying to favour Verstappen.

"Sure I was disappointed and it obviously sucked to have a win and then not even a podium from a potential victory," he said.

"I spoke a lot with the team and had a lot of explanations, the reasons why we pitted and at the time it seemed the three-stop was the best thing to do.

"It didn't fall in my favour which obviously sucked, but there was no other agenda behind it.

He added: "Even though I was massively frustrated with the outcome of Barcelona, I never thought anything suspect.

"Deep down I always knew [the strategy] was with the right intentions, it just didn't work."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble

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