Ricciardo Regrets Not Being Able To Show How 'Frustratingly Fast' He Was In Sao Paulo
F1
AlphaTauri F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo reflected on the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos Circuit after starting a lap down on everybody.
Daniel Ricciardo went into the race on Sunday, starting from the 17th place. But he was hit with misfortune right after the race started.
Nico Hulkenberg, Alex Albon, and Kevin Magnussen, who started in front of him, collided, which created a lot of mess. Ricciardo did his best to avoid the incident, but his car was hit by a loose tire flying through the air. The Honey Badger told the media after the race:
"And then I just remember seeing like a wheel, I guess the tire came off the rim, just kind of like frisbeeing through the air and started coming closer, and I think even my instinct was to duck my head, and I didn’t feel anything hit me, so I was like. ‘Alright, cool’"
A loose tire flying through the air is, of course, a very dangerous thing, but it didn't look so bad even from Ricciardo's onboard camera. On the other hand, his wing got damaged:
"And then after Turn 1, I checked the mirrors, and I could see the rear wing was damaged, so I figured the tire got the wing."
The race was red-flagged on the first lap after the incident between the three cars in front of Ricciardo. There was a lot of debris on the track, and barriers needed to be fixed.
"But then we got the news it was red-flagged, so I was like, ‘Alright, the team can hopefully repair it,’ and they did a great job. And again, we were ready to go on time, but then they told us we were a lap down, so really frustrating."
Because of the rules set by FIA, Ricciardo and McLaren driver Oscar Piastri had to start a lap down after Repairing their cars. This obviously set the pair so far back that they never had a chance to recover.
"I think on top of that, we were, I want to say, exceptionally fast today. We couldn’t always show it because we were a lap down and just having to play, let’s say, the team game, of course, not getting in the way of obviously Yuki’s race or even other cars around us."
Even though Honey Badger started from the pit lane on the race restart, he caught up with everybody and technically finished the race behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda in 9th place. The only problem was he was a lap down.
"But the times that we did have some clear air, especially towards the end, there were a couple laps where I was able to show my speed, and frustratingly fast."
At the end of the day, Ricciardo was the tenth driver to cross the finish line with even more speed in hand but could not show it and scored zero points, which is frustrating for both him and his team.
"So I feel for the team, like me, my championship. I’m not in a championship hunt, but I’m here to help the team get now seventh in the championship, and I felt I could have heavily contributed today."
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