Ricciardo was left scratching his head at times in 2019

2019 was a bit of a reality check for Daniel Ricciardo and Renault and the Australian has admitted they were left scratching their heads at times as they finished fifth in the Constructors' Championship.

After leaving Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season, Ricciardo arrived at Renault with the team looking to push on after finishing best of the rest. However, it didn't pan out how he would have planned as Renault dropped to fifth behind McLaren and they were even pushed all the way by Toro Rosso for fifth in the standings.

The man himself admits Renault's mixed fortunes in 2019 left him scratching his head.

“I expected lows, and I think in any team you expect some lows because even if Mercedes is used to winning, then a fourth-place is a low for them,” Ricciardo said as quoted by Motorsport.com.

“The high was kind of inline – a top-five, whatever I knew was there. But the lows at times we were like scratching our heads. Like, ‘we shouldn’t be this far down’.

“We’re not going to be a top-five car maybe every race, but to be running P14 or something, we thought we were done with this.

“So that was where there was a bit more, I guess, head-scratching and the reality of still we’ve got a lot of work to do.”