'Texas Hasn’t Been Too Kind': Ricciardo Reflects On United States Grand Prix

Tuesday, 24 October 2023 at 07:00

AlphaTauri F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo reacts to disappointing first result at the 2023 United States Grand Prix after recovering from an injury.

After not participating in the last Grand Prix races of the 2023 season, Ricciardo returned to the seat of his AlphaTauri at Circuit of the Americas in Austin.

The Australian did not have the best of his weekends as he ran into a technical issue during the race, which made him uncompetitive. According to F1, the Honey Badger said after the race:

"Texas hasn’t been too kind. At the start, we were doing well with our plan, but the problem was once the cars with blue flags came up behind us, we lost too much. We seemed to struggle in traffic and then picked up some damage later on, so after that, we lacked pace."

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The Australian's teammate, Yuki Tsunoda on the other hand, had a better weekend when he managed to cross the finish line in the last point scoring position - P10.

After the disqualification of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Yuki Tsunoda moved up two places to P8, beating AlphaTauri's best result of the season, scored by Liam Lawson during the Singapore Grand Prix. Ricciardo added:

"On the medium compound, we were doing the same lap times as Yuki, but because I was on a one-stop, there was a bit more tire management going on for me."

While Honey Badger is still recovering from his injury at the Dutch Grand Prix, he said he felt better on Sunday and is ready for this week's Mexico City Grand Prix.

"Physically, I feel better today than yesterday, so the Sprint race was a good warmup for the Grand Prix. I got more race mileage, and there's a lot to learn from this race, so now it’s a full attack for Mexico."