Daniel Ricciardo was left fuming after a heavy hit from Lance Stroll’s Astron Martin under the safety car led to his retirement from the Formula 1 Chinese GP – and the Australian didn’t mince his words.
Stroll ran into the rear of Ricciardo’s VCARB when the field backed up ahead of a restart after a safety car period.
Ricciardo’s car was lifted off the ground, and he was in turn pushed into the back of the McLaren of his fellow countryman Oscar Piastri.
Although he initially continued and took the subsequent restart Ricciardo quickly realised that floor damage was too significant, and he retired the car.
Stroll dropped to the back of the field after a nose change, and later picked up a 10-second penalty, but it was his comments on team radio that riled Ricciardo.
“I slowly started to calm down,” he said while the race was still running and Stroll thus still driving.
“And then I was told what Lance thinks of the accident, or the incident. And apparently I’m an idiot! And it was my fault. So that made my blood boil. Because it’s clear as day, and it’s also behind a safety car.
“I mean, the only thing you’ve got to do is watch the car in front, we can’t predict what the leader is going to do. We can’t assume that we’re going to go into Turn 14 – the race doesn’t start until the control line. So I’m doing my best not to say what I want to say. But f**k that guy. I’m being nice still. But if that’s what he thinks…
“I won’t go harder, because maybe in an hour, when he sees it, he might take some accountability. But if he doesn’t, I can’t help him and nor can anyone here. It’s so frustrating. Obviously, racing incidents happen, things happen, but behind a safety car? That should never happen.”
Ricciardo was particularly upset as he felt that Stroll hadn’t been focussed on the car ahead.
“I think what makes my blood boil is I’ve watched his onboard, to just, let’s say, see it from his perspective, to again try to maybe just have some type of understanding,” he said. “
“And as soon as we start braking, you can see his helmet turn right. And he’s looking at the apex of Turn 14. And he’s not even watching me. And then when he looks back, he’s in the back of me. So I don’t know what he’s doing, where his head is, but all you have to do is worry about me in that situation. And he clearly wasn’t.”
Regarding his own perspective he said: “I could see it was bunching up in 14, and as I said we can’t know for a fact. I guess it was Max [Verstappen] leading. We don’t know when he’s going to go. Even if he bunches up in 14, it doesn’t mean he’s going to go out of 14, maybe he bunches up again, in 15 or 16.
“So you just have to obviously try and stay close to the car in front. But not hit the car in front, right? And yeah, we all bunched up, fair enough, at the hairpin.
“But it’s not like he just tapped me and gave me a punch or something. He went underneath my car. So he hit me so fast. You can’t deny that. It’s not an unlucky thing where he’s just tapped me. He was underneath me.
“I want him to understand that once the dust settles, if he’s still hot-headed today, he needs to learn from this. We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve done it, we all have, but just as long as he understands that he was the one that’s ruined obviously. not only his race but mine, that’s the biggest thing we can take away.”
Ricciardo was quickly resigned to the fact that the car was damaged: “Obviously I felt I was up high, so I knew there was going to be quite a bit. And we had a few corners after that incident before that kind of secondary start.
“And I already felt it was going to be bad. So obviously, we tried on that second one to go, but deep down, I knew we were going to probably retire the call.”
The added frustration for Ricciardo was that he was on the fringes of the points when the incident occurred, despite losing three spots on the first lap.
“It was definitely a bit of a kind of yo-yo race where we sucked pretty bad off the start, which obviously compromised our first stint. Everyone pitted early, so we went longer, and then soon as we put on the second medium we were like very good. I know we were only out there for five or six laps, but it felt rapid.
“And then obviously the tyre is still being pretty good we chose to stay out, so I think track position, and then we’re going to fit a soft at the end I think we would have been in a very good place. So the first few minutes of the race looked a bit grim, but I think we were coming back, and showing good signs.”
Adam Cooper F1 