While nobody expected him to be challenging for podiums, few would have believed that two races into the season Daniel Ricciardo would not have opened his points account and failed to make it past Q2.

However, this indeed the case, and as he heads into the third race of the season, at the very venue where he claimed victory twelve months ago, the Australian admits he may be part of the problem.

"One thing we've assessed is maybe we are trying to do too much over the course of a weekend," he told reporters. "We established that we are currently trying to do too much.

"Where I am trying to settle in and also my engineers are trying to work with me," he continued. "Probably all of us are trying to be too clever. I don't want to say that because you are always trying to find the limits. But for now maybe we just need to keep a more basic approach and just do what we can, do it well, and then probably not look for that extra one per cent.

"There is probably bigger time from just being comfortable and working well together," he admitted. "I know that once I start getting really comfortable with the car, that will reflect and that will go on to my engineers and then they will start to have more confidence... and this... and that."

However, the Australian insists that her has no intention of changing his style to suit the RS19.

"Your style will always be a part of you," he said, "but the difficult thing was in a way there is so much I could learn and bring from Red Bull, but also, I need to forget a lot of it because it is a different car and it needs to be tamed a bit different.

"In testing and Melbourne I was over-driving," he admitted, "but that was my approach in the Red Bull, carrying in the entry speed and the car has a good rear. Here it is a different approach for now. I don't think my style will necessarily change. I still want to be that aggressive driver on the brakes and all that.

"But that will come with a bit of confidence. I probably have not yet had that level of confidence on braking as I had last year. But that will come."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Shanghai, here.