Daniel Ricciardo was livid with Lance Stroll’s radio comment after their F1 Chinese GP clash, as the Canadian plays down the incident.
It was yet another incident that ended the race for Visa Cash App RB’s Ricciardo. It happened on Lap 1 in Japan, in F1 Chinese GP, it was at the re-start when Aston Martin’s Stroll slammed on the back of him at the hairpin.
It sent him airbourne for a brief moment with significant damage to the rear of his car. He managed to continue on but that wasn’t for long. On top of the retirement, Ricciardo got a 3-place grid drop for Miami after he overtook Nico Hulkenberg under the safety car.
Post-race, Ricciardo noted how he was calming himself down but once he heard Stroll’s radio about calling him an ‘idiot’, the Australian had some harsh words for the Canadian. He felt sorry for him and wanted him to take some accountability of the incident.
There was nothing much Ricciardo could have done, as he said and accepted that mistakes like these can happen which is why he wants Stroll to take some responsibility. The Canadian, on the other hand, played down the incident as a concertina effect.
He said he didn’t blame Ricciardo per se, but just that the field ahead braked and bunched up. He didn’t agree with the 10s time penalty since he felt the stewards looked at the outcome rather than how the incident happened on the larger side.
Thoughts after radio message –
Ricciardo: “I would say today it felt like that [that I can’t catch a break]. I’d slowly started to calm down, and then I was told what Lance thinks of the incident. Apparently, I’m an idiot, and it was my fault. That made my blood boil, because it’s clear as day and it’s also behind a safety car. The only thing you’ve got to do is watch the car in front. We can’t predict what the leader’s gonna do. We can’t assume that we are 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*ck that guy. And I’m being nice, too! But if that’s what he thinks…I like, yeah. I would go hard but maybe in an hour, when he sees it, he might take some accountability.
“But if he doesn’t, I can’t help him, nor can anyone here. It’s so frustrating. Obviously, racing incidents happen, but behind a safety car, that should never happen. I think what made my blood boil is I watched his onboard, to just see it from his perspective, try to have maybe some kind of understanding. And as soon as we start braking, you can see his helmet turn right and he’s looking at the apex of Turn 14, he’s not even watching me. And then when he looks back, he’s in the back of me. I don’t know what he’s doing, where his head is, but all he has to do is worry about me in that situation, and he clearly wasn’t. Let’s see what he says in the media, but if he comes after me, then I’ll say more…”
Bunch-up situation –
Ricciardo: “I could see it was bunching up in Turn 14, as I said, we can’t know for a fact, I guess it was Max leading, so we don’t know when he is going to go. Even if he bunches up in Turn 14, it doesn’t mean he is going to to out of Turn 14, maybe he bunches up again in Turn 15 or Turn 16, so you just have to obviously try and stay close to the car in front but not hit the car in front, right? We all bunched up, fair enough, it is a hairpin but again, it is not like he just tapped me and gave me a puncture or something, he went underneath my car, so he hit me so fast, it is not even a…you can’t deny that. It is not an unlucky thing where, he’s just tapped me, it was underneath me, so.”
Damage and situation plus if bigger penalty –
Ricciardo: “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 second re-start and I already felt it was going to be bad. We tried on the second one to go but deep down I knew, we were probably going to retire the car. The biggest thing is if they’re like ‘oh, we’ll give him a five-place penalty the next race’, but he still is then blaming me, that’s a bigger problem. I want him to understand 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. As long as he understands that he was the one that’s ruined not only his race but mine, that’s the biggest thing we can take away.”
Incident and penalty –
Stroll: “Concertina effect. Someone braked at the front of the pack – I don’t know who – and then everyone stopped. The car in front of me just stopped from like 60kph to zero, and then boom, so it was really stupid – it’s one of those. I think it’s just because of the fact that I hit the guy, but someone hit the brakes and caused a concertina. I don’t know, but I find it’s just – I got a penalty because of the end result that I hit Ricciardo, but it’s not like everything was normal and I just slammed into the back of him. It was a really odd concertina effect that I would have liked to see the stewards take into consideration maybe a little bit more.”
Nothing could have done, radio comment –
Stroll: “No, no, it was just like, we were 60 km/hr, then slow a little to 40 km/her and then zero all of a sudden. I guess, a little bit wrong place too, I was in his gearbox kind of thing, ready for the re-start, just very unlucky especially since we were having a good race until then, it is just a shame. I don’t think it was him [for my radio comment]. Everyone just slammed on the brakes and he was the guy in front of me. So I don’t think he slammed on the brakes, it was a concertina effect.”
Here’s what stewards said: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Chinese%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Infringement%20(Corrected)%20-%20Car%2018%20-%20Causing%20a%20Collision.pdf
Here’s how F1 Chinese GP panned out
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