Red Bull considers tactical F1 engine change for Ricciardo in Mexico

Ricciardo said he felt "very confused, annoyed, helpless" after he ended up seventh fastest, almost a second off the pace while team-mate Max Verstappen was 0.086s off pole position.

With his Renault engine high on mileage and the altitude in Mexico putting a strain on the unit, Ricciardo said the team is pondering an engine change given his lower grid slot.

It comes after Toro Rosso's Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly have suffered reliability woes with their Renault engines over the last two days.

"The problems Toro Rosso has had this weekend, there's some doubts with what we've got at the moment," Ricciardo said.

"This weekend, this engine is towards the end of its life and this track with the altitude and that, it works them a lot harder.

"We knew there would be a bit of a risk here, but there's been quite a few failures this weekend so far.

"From that point of view we're trying to weigh up whether we just run the race and risk something happening or we do take a penalty and then that way we probably escape a penalty in Brazil."

Ricciardo said while he would ordinarily prefer to start as high as possible, he understands the need to plan for the final two races of the season, particularly as Red Bull expects to be strong at Interlagos and would therefore like to avoid taking penalties there.

"If we were starting on the front row, I don't think we'd be talking about this but that's the way it's going," he said.

"I don't like conceding, I'd love to get stuck in and race, so my heart would want to race and try and move forward.

"But I've also got to take the emotion out of it and think with my head.

"If I look at Brazil, we're probably better to take a penalty here. It's a tough one.

"We've got a little bit of time to figure it out but for sure tonight we're going to decide."