Ricciardo: New engine not really worth it

Daniel Ricciardo believes the decision to use an upgraded Renault engine in qualifying at Interlagos was a futile exercise for Red Bull.

Three weeks after Renault used 11 of its 12 in-season development tokens to upgrade its engine, Red Bull finally opted to run the new specification power unit at the Brazilian GP.

Only Ricciardo ran the new engine on the first two days, but he was outqualified by his team-mate Daniil Kvyat on Saturday as the Russian was 0.095s faster and P7 with the old-spec PU compared to his P9.

There is of course further bad news for the Australian as he will drop 10 places due to the engine change and he admits they didn't get the results they were hoping for.

"It was not worth it to have the new engine. I'll have a look at the overlay later, but from what I saw today it was not that much of an advantage," he told BBC Sport. 

"We did what we could. But starting 19th it is going to be a fun race later. I hope it will rain. I don't think it will."