Daniel Ricciardo once again failed to finish above teammate Yuki Tsunoda after a qualifying session. The Japanese managed to finish ahead of his compatriots in Q3, with the Australian one place below. His highest qualifying position this season. And while he is not 100% satisfied yet, Riccardo does acknowledge that steps have been made.

"Personally, of course there is the frustration of being just off. When I saw on the board that I was tenth, I knew there would be a few more cars. So it was narrow and that is frustrating, but also encouraging because, for whatever reason, it has been a tough start to the year," said the normally good-humoured Australian.

Ricciardo also looks at the two free practice sessions, one of which fell into the water: "I don't think I can take anything away from Yuki with that. I think he also drove very well, so I guess it's down to two sides. But yeah, look, I don't want to use yesterday to point out why I'm half a tenth off. It's not because of yesterday, but it did make it a bit harder for us today."

Free practice sessions caught up

So a tough weekend for Ricciardo, who hopes to take steps forward; "I think we did very well under those conditions as well to recover what we couldn't do during free practice." Ricciardo will be going for his first points in Japan since Mexico last year, where he finished seventh.