“I can’t say it’s 100 percent my fault,” Daniel Ricciardo feels Yuki Tsunoda is also to blame for their ‘unfortunate’ collision at Mexican GP
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Daniel and Yuki
Daniel Ricciardo had an outing to remember at the Mexican Grand Prix, where despite starting P11 he was able to land his MCL36 in P7.
It was not a straightforward race for Daniel Ricciardo as in an attempt to get the better of Yuki Tsunoda, who was running ahead of him on lap 51 of the race, the Australian while going into Turn 4 collided with the right rear tire of Japanese driver and brought the latter’s race to an abrupt end.
Moreover, for his actions, he was slapped with 10 seconds time penalty, for which, he was able to make up by stretching his lead to over 10-second on Esteban Ocon who was running behind him after getting overtaken.
The soft tires worked extremely well for Ricciardo during the dying stages of the race, and on the back of that, he was able to attain a respectable P7 finish for the papaya-colored team.
While Daniel Ricciardo has agreed that his outing could have gone smoother, he has made it known that he was not the only one to blame for the collision with Yuki Tsunoda.
Daniel Ricciardo’s take on his tussle with Yuki Tsunoda
Daniel Ricciardo, after the race, stressed his incident with Tsunoda and said, “I’m very happy but it still wasn’t straightforward. I mean, like I obviously still got a 10-second penalty so I’m a little mixed about it.”
“Like, of course, you never want contact to a point where the other guy goes off but I just saw a replay just before I did the media and I don’t feel as bad about it now – [but] of course I still wish it didn’t happen.”
“I think it’s one where for sure I’ll take a bit more responsibility, but I can’t say it’s 100% my fault. But anyway, you know, that was a little bit of a difficult moment in the race, but after Tom [Stallard, race engineer] told me I had 10 seconds I didn’t respond.”
“I was pretty dark. But then I felt like I still had a really good pace, so I got on with it. And I managed to somehow make it work.”
The 33-year-old has made it known that he was not in his right mind after the incident but realized that he had a strong race pace and decided to do his best.
Moreover, on the back of his superior pace compared to a few runners ahead of him, he was able to go past Esteban Ocon and end his exploits in P7.
The Mexican GP result will give him a lot of confidence going into the remaining races of the season, and it would be fascinating to see how he’ll perform in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)