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> who is of course, driving the same car

This isn't really an 'of course' - while I believe you're right in this instance, teammates having unequal machinery is very common (for example, the driver who brings the money being prioritised for upgrades).

As much as I love Ricciardo, the share of bad luck has been most unequal and it's not Max's fault he is so far behind.

I believe if you look at the races and why this is you will find Max had more then one race where the car failed or was crashed out this year.

If you count today's race, his car stopped working 6 out of 12 races this year [1] -- through no (obvious) fault of his own. They were mostly engine-related failures.

This is the prime reason for his bad point total.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Formula_One_season#33