Daniel Ricciardo said a car issue prevented him from holding on to the final place on the podium at the French Grand Prix.
Ricciardo was on course for a comfortable third place in France before picking up front wing damage mid-way shortly before his pit-stop. His compromised pace meant he was unable to fend off a fast-charging Kimi Raikkonen, who had switched to the super-softs after a long first stint.
"Disappointed,'' Ricciardo told Sky Sports when asked for his thoughts on the race. "We had pretty good pace towards the end of that first stint. It seemed that we were catching Max and pulling away from Kimi. When I pitted, the boys said the front left part of the wing was damaged.
"They think it happened about two laps before the pit-stop because I started to all of a sudden get quite a lot of understeer. I don't know if it was a failure or we hit some debris. That broke. So then already with the soft tire we were struggling when we left the pits. And then a few laps later the team said the right part broke.
"So both parts identically seemed to break. Whether there was a failure or debris I don't know yet. But it happened and we were slow. Obviously because of that we had a lot less downforce and understeering. So Kimi was always going to catch us with that pace, but the blue flags - that was really bad. But we were a wounded car from just before the first pit stop.''
Red Bull boss Christian Horner was unable to definitively confirm what caused Ricciardo's damage.
"Just a shame with Daniel - the front wing about lap 20 something, the top two elements of the flap became disbanded. Maybe some debris or something like that hit it. So frustrating.''