Antonio Giovinazzi hit on Daniel Ricciardo on F1 Azerbaijan GP re-start, unsettled the Australian, as the duo talk about their respective grand prix.
The F1 Azerbaijan GP was a wild race. And during the hectic action of the two laps mini-GP that gave the victory to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, the world feed missed a juicy moment between Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi and McLaren’s Ricciardo.
Giovinazzi started 20th after crashing during Q1, and it was another great start from the Italian, ending Lap 1 in 15th place. “I had a great start and this allowed me to be back in the battle for the points from the start,” said the Italian.
“It wasn’t an easy race as I had a small issue with the brakes, which is not ideal on a track like this, but my pace was quite good anyway. We made an early stop to undercut some of our rivals and after that, it was a bit quiet until the red flag.”
After the red flag caused by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen’s accident, FIA race director Michael Masi decided for a standing start, where Giovinazzi and Ricciardo started from the outside of the Top 10, in a hectic finish to the F1 Azerbaijan GP.
In the heat of the re-start, the drivers arrived at the left-handed Turn 2 close to each other. Giovinazzi braked too late in the corner and hit the back Ricciardo, who couldn’t take benefit of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz going a bit off in the corner.
“The last start, I felt like I got a good launch, and had a good run on the outside but there wasn’t really much room with a couple of cars on the inside,” said Ricciardo. “It just all bottlenecked into Turn Two and I felt a hit from behind.”
Giovinazzi, meanwhile, acknowledged his mistake, which sent him into an anti-stall and dropped him behind Kimi Raikkonen. “At the re-start, I gained some positions on turn one but I made contact with Ricciardo at the second corner and my car went into anti-stall.”
Despite failing to score points, Giovinazzi found only positive aspects in his race. “I think we got all we could out of this race, especially starting from last, and we ended up so close to the points,” he said, “Many things happened, it was quite a crazy race in the end, but we need to be happy as we got to score another point with Kimi, the second race in a row for our team.”
For Ricciardo, it was a fightback into the Top 10 after his own qualifying crash. He cleared Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas to get into the points and DNFs at the front, allowed him to finish ninth, eventually. “We had some positive moments,” he said. “But there were also a few difficult periods. I flat-spotted the Hard a bit, so that became tricky for the last few laps before the red flag, but not too bad beforehand.”
Here’s an UNOFFICIAL video of the clash – F1 has not shared any OFFICIAL video of the said incident and so the link to the below video is alive for now but if FOM catches it, the uploader may have to take it down eventually (if F1 uploads an official link, we will replace it instantly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXmMLVXQkB4
Here’s video of Antonio Giovinazzi on Lap 1: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-azerbaijan-grand-prix-onboard-with-giovinazzi-from-back-of-the-grid.1701832549460711826.html
Here’s another world feed miss of Haas drivers’ moment
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP panned out
The story was written by Lorenzo Liegi
