Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo took blame for the clash with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in F1 Brazil GP but hailed his awesome recovery post that.
Ricciardo has always been known for his quality overtaking, but in Brazil GP, there was talk around his pass on Magnussen for all the wrong reasons, after a dive to the inside turned sour, with the Australian running wide and clashing with the Dane, sending him to a spin.
The overtake didn’t sit well with the stewards as well, as Ricciardo was handed a five-second time penalty. Even with this handicap,he regained ground and ultimately finished seventh, seizing the chaos at the restarts. He was promoted to sixth after the race.
The Australian felt it was an awesome recovery after a low-key start as he also took the blame for the incident against Magnussen. “In the heat of the battle and also, to be honest, sitting as low as we do, you don’t always see how much room there was,” said Ricciardo.
“Obviously I hit him and he spun, so whether he squeezed me or not, I don’t know. But, I wanted to apologise because if I’m in that position, and someone hits me, I would expect the same. I knew as he spun, ‘there’s a chance the stewards will give me a penalty now’.
“So, I was obviously upset with myself, and upset with the incident, but I think, to be honest, we kept our head down, didn’t expect to get up to seventh but we made it happen, and that part of the race was really strong. The penultimate re-start was awesome.
“I think I got three cars, maybe, on that lap. It was fun, it was cool.” He was quite close to Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi in the end but couldn’t overtake him. Meanwhile, Magnussen’s race didn’t go as to plan after the incident as he ended up 11th.
He was unable to recover and lost yet more time in the re-starts, partly because the Haas car isn’t able to generate heat quick enough. “It’s a shame, this feels like a missed opportunity for the team – it just didn’t go our way,” said Magnussen.
“I got turned around at the beginning of the race by Ricciardo and lost a lot of positions, I then had damage on the front wing. At the safety car later, everyone else was just a lot stronger than us at the restart, I just didn’t have enough to hang onto it.
“I got passed and ultimately missed out on the points by just one place – which doesn’t feel good.” It was a similar case with teammate Romain Grosjean, who was poised for a better result had the race finished normally but safety car ruined his run.
The Frenchman had similar heating issues to the Dane and to add to his misery, he faced problems with his MGU-K to drop further behind. At the same time, Ricciardo’s teammate Nico Hulkenberg also didn’t have anything going in his favour in terms of pace.
The German never looked comfortable and was also penalised for overtaking Magnussen at the safety car line. In anycase, Renault has lost the fight against McLaren for fourth but now they have Toro Rosso, just eight points behind with one race to go.
Here’s what happened to Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari drivers
Carlos Sainz gets promoted to podium after being cleared of DRS issue
Ferrari drivers and Mattia Binotto react to the incident
Pierre Gasly enjoyed the brief tussle against Lewis Hamilton in Brazil
Alfa Romeo drivers react to a fruitful Brazil GP
Here’s what Ross Brawn had to say on multiple topics
Lance Stroll was affected by the Ferrari clash
Mercedes admits of getting their strategy wrong while Red Bull got theirs right
This story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani