Ricciardo was anticipating an apology from his team after the flag
Daniel Ricciardo was left “angry” after his VCARB Formula 1 team gave him what he felt was a poor strategy call in Hungary – and then failed to apologise on the in-lap for getting it wrong.
The Australian started ninth on the medium tyre, and lost a couple of spots at the start to drivers on softs, and who had better initial grip.
However he was then surprised when he was called into the pits for an early first stop just on lap seven, as the gaggle of soft runners were stopping.
He then found himself on the same strategy and his immediate rivals. He eventually finished 12th, while team mate Yuki Tsunoda used a one-stop strategy to go from 10th on the grid to ninth at the flag, jumping both Aston Martin drivers.
“Massively,” he said when asked by this writer if he was disappointed. “Why they pitted me when they did at the beginning… We followed the soft cars in. They’ve just come in, we have a clear track, and we decide to pit behind them and put ourselves in a DRS train, and then on the same tyre, we’re all on the hard.
“I’ve had a lot of races, and I’ve had a lot of frustrating ones, but that’s up there, because we had the pace, and we basically gave Yuki the race that we had in front of us. And we both could have done that, and we didn’t.”
Ricciardo said he didn’t have an opportunity to challenge the call to pit early.
“I didn’t have time,” he said. “It’s a late call, box, box, box, and you pit in. But honestly, as soon as I’m pulling in the pits, I’m questioning it. But you can’t, you get called in Turn 13, and you have to react.
“Two cars jumped us at the start with a soft tyre. That’s fine. Let them go. They pit, and we follow them, to then just be on their strategy. We would have had clear air and a chance to, I think, from what I understand, do Yuki’s race.
“Honestly, I was expecting more. On the in-lap I was waiting for a ‘Sorry, we fucked up,’ and I didn’t get it, so that made me even more angry.”
He continued: “Cars had already pitted, so for us to then pit, I don’t understand. We had a medium, the tyre is going to go, so let’s just use it. I don’t know if by doing that, that allowed Yuki to get points, but from my understanding, we both could have done it.
“We were both quick enough. We had the pace all weekend. So unless I’m missing something? I really don’t think I am.”
Ricciardo said it was made worse by the team asking him to hold up Lance Stroll near the end on fading tyres.
“Stroll’s catching me a second lap and maybe more, and they’re saying it’s really important to keep him behind,” he said. “And what do you want me to do? You pitted me so early. I’m on older tyres.
“I’m also being expected to fight when we’re not really in a fight anymore. So that that was also frustrating. There were times where I just felt the bed was made. So yeah, frustrated.”
Team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that a mistake had been made.
“Unfortunately, we got it wrong with Daniel and pitted him too early in heavy traffic, which lost him a chance to fight for points,” said the Frenchman.
“His pace had been extremely strong all weekend long, and he demonstrated that again in the final stint of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back.
“We certainly share his frustration, and we will learn and come back stronger next week.”
Adam Cooper F1 