Daniel Ricciardo was left fuming at his tyre strategy after losing out on points in Spain.
Starting 13th after his grid penalty from Baku, the Australian would duel with Carlos Sainz for the first portion of the race, only to be undercut during the first round of stops.
To make matters worse, a decision to use the hard tyre then backfired as the McLaren moved into the top 10 on mediums while Ricciardo was stuck in P12.
“I am frustrated. I see Carlos Sainz riding in the points here and that is what I was aiming for,” he said post-race.
“We opted for the hard tyre and him for the medium tyre. He passed us in his out-lap, he finished where we wanted to finish.
“To be honest, we didn’t get it done here. We didn’t get the maximum out of the car because I think points could have been possible.
“It’s small things that make sure you can’t score points in midfield. We just haven’t got it right yet and we’ll have to improve.”
Teammate Nico Hulkenberg’s race started from the pit-lane after a breach of parc ferme conditions and his attempted one-stop strategy would fail due to a Safety Car.
“At the restart, we had 10 laps on the softest compound, but it didn’t work. I also couldn’t connect with the group in front of me,” the German explained.
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“The only good thing is that we were able to test the new engine and that I reached the end of the race. We want to take advantage of this in the future.
“I am happy with the speed of the car, but we still have a balance problem. The lap times are still fluctuating too much, we have to work on this, certainly at the end of our runs.”
Sunday’s race marked the third time in 2019 that Renault failed to score a point, with the team sitting a lowly eighth in the Constructors’ standings.