Dropping one place from 12th on the grid to 13th at the finish, Daniel Ricciardo has seen better Italian Grand Prix. A decent qualifying came a bit undone when he tangled with Nico Hülkenberg in the braking zone for the Variante Ascari in lap 1. The Haas driver was forced into the grass, costing him vital positions, and the Ozzy was penalised with a five-second time penalty. Ricciardo was self-conscious and apologised straight away after the race.
“So, I felt the hit, but I don’t know, was he half a car in the grass, or did he just drop the outside tyre and that kind of locked him up on braking. So yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, obviously I didn’t give him enough room, period.
“I, at least I can do is apologise and just say… I just, I was also curious about how much was it. I knew I was wrong, but was it like something that he wanted to punch my face in? Or was it something that he was just like, ‘yeah, you misjudged it by 10 centimetres.’
“But yeah, it was a little bit in a way frustrating because I had struggled on first laps this year,” Ricciardo continued. “You know, big picture, I didn’t really gain any positions at all in that one. So up until that point, it was going okay. You know, I think being a bit more aggressive, which I think I liked.
“But then maybe I was having too much fun being aggressive and I got too aggressive. So anyway, I joke about it, but obviously I need to judge this a bit better. Not ignoring it, but then beyond that big picture, we weren’t just quite there.“
To add insult to injury, a trigger-happy mechanic touched the car early while serving the penalty, prompting another ten-second penalty for the RB driver at the end of the race. A costly mistake, but Ricciardo was quick to admit that he himself put the team in this position.
“Obviously from that point of view, of course, we’ll look at it. But then, if I leave Nico a little bit more room, we don’t get the penalty and we don’t put ourselves in that position.
“So of course I have to accept a part of that. But as I said, I feel bad about the outcome, but I don’t feel bad about the approach.”
He did have a message for the race organisers though, as the amount of dirt and rubble on track was quite signficant during the entire weekend, especially compared to previous years, something which was also discussed during the drivers’ briefing.
“On a side note, it sounds like an excuse, I don’t want it to come across as an excuse, but in drivers’ briefing, we talked about some of these edges of the track, why there’s not a kerb or something. Because even getting on the white line, you flick up dust in qualifying. So it is tricky.
“And again, I know what the conditions are today. There was a kerb there last year, so maybe last year we would have got through it. But just when there’s dirt on the edges, that’s not just my incident, but quali, everything.
“You come across so much stuff on the track all the time. Hopefully next year they can just put maybe a little bit of concrete on the track there. Not only protect maybe incidents like I had today, but just bring back some quality.”
