Red Bull prevented from showing true pace in Melbourne

Red Bull chief Christian Horner says Daniel Ricciardo's fastest lap of the Australian Grand Prix was the only time his team were able to show their true pace in Melbourne. Red Bull scored fourth and sixth position in Sunday's race but both Ricciardo and Max Verstappen left frustrated.

Ricciardo climbed from eighth on the grid to fourth, but remains without an elusive podium in his home race, despite delivering a lap of one minute 25.945 seconds, four tenths better than anyone else managed across the race.

That came as he hunted down Kimi Raikkonen for the final podium place, although Ricciardo found passing impossible once onto the Ferrari's gearbox.

Drivers up and down the grid complained of how difficult it was to overtake, despite the installation of a third DRS zone, and Horner says the conditions hindered his team badly.

"We got one lap in the grand prix to judge our pace, which he [Ricciardo] set the fastest lap on," said Horner.

"The pace of our car was actually very good. Both of our cars sat looking at rear wings of different cars throughout the grand prix.

P4, P6, 20 points and our best #AusGP since 2013 ????????????
A good base to build on for 2018! pic.twitter.com/CRopXnOE9T — Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 26, 2018

"The only clear lap we had was when Daniel dropped back from Kimi and then went to push up to have a go in the last part of the race and set the fastest race lap.

"So we had a lot of pace in hand but where never able to show it because they were constantly within a second of someone."

Red Bull are tipped to join Mercedes and Ferrari in the battle for honours this year and Verstappen saw an effort at the Scuderia off the line thwarted, leaving him vulnerable to a pass from Haas' Kevin Magnussen at the first corner.

Verstappen later spun while chasing the Dane, costing him three more places.

"Where he was unlucky was at the start," Horner said of the Dutchman.

"He made a good initial getaway, had a bit of a run on Sebastian [Vettel], went to the right but got boxed in there, and that allowed Magnussen a clean run to take advantage in turn two and sneak ahead of Max.

"As soon as he was behind the Haas, knowing how tough it is to overtake around here, absolutely went for it, got a bit wide I think in turn 11 or 12 on lap six and that damaged the rear diffuser.

"That created a significant imbalance for him which he did incredibly well to manage for the rest of the race. But then that caught him out with a spin at turn one. He was getting intermittent loss of downforce in mid-corners, nothing he could do about it."