An "eternity" is how Daniel Riccardo describes the one second gap to his McLaren teammate, the Australian admitting that it feels as if he's forgotten how to drive the Monaco track where he won in 2018.

The Australian's Monaco misery continues, as the McLaren driver will start today's race from 12th, just under a second off his teammate's pace.

"It is more confusing than frustrating at the moment, that is the emotion," he admitted. "There were some laps, this year, there were laps where I said that lap was a bit messy and I understand why. But I was a second off the whole weekend... a second is an eternity.

"I do not have an answer for that," he continued. "I could explain a couple of tenths. I don't feel like I have forgotten how to drive this track.

"There are a few things we need to figure out. I don't think the car felt particularly bad or off, it was just like, when you see your dash and the lap times are still a long way off… I understood a few things, but there's still a bit of digging to do, I would say."

The Australian comes to Monaco off the back of a much-improved weekend in Spain, which only adds to his frustration.

"For sure, this circuit's different and you need the confidence and all that, but I didn't feel like I lacked really much confidence this weekend. I was certainly excited to come here after Barcelona. We made a good step, and I was coming in here pretty alright.

"If I think about Renault, like the first year, it visibly took me a few races and then by Monaco I actually had a pretty decent qualifying, I think I was sixth or something on the grid.

"Coming into the weekend, and even on track, I felt alright, but obviously we were always just on the back foot and always kind of two steps behind, not even a step behind. Normally, even if you're slow, you'll be good on one corner, but it wasn't really the case.

"The car is certainly tricky to execute well, you have to just be very precise and for sure I'm still probably not driving as it deserves to be driven. That's obviously still something which I'll accept, that I need to obviously improve and figure out how to drive the car better.

"But yeah, I felt like we made a good step last weekend, so yeah, we've certainly taken a back step for now."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco, here.