Daniel Ricciardo accuses RB of failing to manage strategy and ruining his chance to score points
After yesterday’s race in Hungary, Daniel Ricciardo was quite angry complaining about another missed opportunity, accusing the RB team of getting its strategy wrong.
Ricciardo raced ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda during an initial short stint on medium tyres, but was then stuck behind Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
The Williams and Haas pitted on lap six before the RB called Ricciardo in at the end of the next lap; as a result, the Australian spent his second stint behind the same cars.
Then, more than 20 seconds behind Tsunoda, Ricciardo pitted again on lap 28, one lap before the Japanese driver made his first and only tyre change of the race.
Ricciardo finished the race only twelfth, 25 seconds behind his teammate, who scored important points in ninth place. At this particular time when his future is at stake, Ricciardo made no secret of his frustration at the way the race unfolded.
Asked in interviews if he was a little disappointed, Ricciardo said: ‘Hugely. The reason they pitted me when they did at the beginning is… Two cars passed us at the beginning with a soft tyre. That’s fine. Let them go. They pit stop and we follow them and then follow their strategy.
They’ve just arrived, we’ve got the track clear, and we decide to pit behind them and put in a DRS train. And it’s like, then on the same tyre, everyone on a hard one, so…’
Ricciardo made it clear that he ‘did not have time’ to question the strategic decision of his engineers.
‘It’s a late call, ‘box box’ and you stop in the pits,’ he recounted. ‘But honestly, as soon as I enter the pits, I ask myself questions. But you can’t hesitate. You know, they call you in turn 13 and you have to react.’
Since then Ricciardo has never again entered the top 10, remaining in 11th place for a time from lap 46 to 54 before Lance Stroll overtook him: the Aston Martin driver had much fresher tyres, having made his second pit stop 17 laps after his opponent.
‘Then, Stroll is taking me a second a lap and maybe more, and they say, you know, it’s really important to keep him behind, and what do you want me to do?’ Ricciardo reflected. ‘You let me back in so early, I have older tyres. I am also expected to fight when we are no longer in a real fight. So that was frustrating as well. There were moments when I felt like… everything was ruined now.’
Mekies admits error
Considering this one of the most frustrating races of his career, Ricciardo saw his teammate’s result as the chance he had had but which the team had decided to squander. Even more irritating was the fact that his track engineer, Pierre Hamelin, apparently did not apologise after the chequered flag.
‘We had the pace and basically gave Yuki the race we had in front of us. And we both could have done it. And we didn’t,’ Ricciardo said.
‘Honestly, I expected more. On the return trip I expected a ‘Sorry, we messed up’. And I didn’t get it. So I got even more angry.’
Team Principal Laurent Mekies then admitted that he had made a mistake with Ricciardo’s strategy.
‘Unfortunately, we made a mistake with Daniel and made him come into the pits too early in heavy traffic, making him miss the chance to fight for points,’ said Mekies.
‘His pace has been extremely strong all weekend and he proved it again in the last part of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and recover. We definitely share his frustration, we will learn and come back stronger next week.’ , concluded the Team Principal.
Photos: Daniel Ricciardo, Visa Cash App RB
