Daniel Ricciardo had just scored his much-needed first Grand Prix points in 2024. Despite getting them, the Australian believed the race was a mixed outing for himself and the team.
In Montreal, the 34-year-old qualified in fifth but his Sunday started on the backfoot after receiving a five-second penalty for a false start. At one point, he dropped back outside the points-scoring position before ultimately finishing eighth.
At the start he lost places to Alonso, Hamilton and the Haas car on wets, before eventually passing Hülkenberg again as the German created a DRS train once the inters became faster.
“I felt like the race was getting away from us. The start itself we were drift city, and we lost a couple of positions there. I say the start, kind of around turn 2 I remember that at Turn 2 Lewis just literally breezing by me and I was Tokyo-ing it. Yeah I lost a bit there and then I got told that we had a penalty.”
Ricciardo continued by explaining his confusion about the penalty imposed and believing he did not jump the starting lights and discussed the possibility of a clutch issue that affected his race start.
“I was quite confused because I knew I didn’t jump the lights. But I recall [that] maybe the car was creeping when I was looking at the lights. So I guess we probably had a clutch issue would be my guess.”
As the rain came again in the middle of the race, RB decided to bring the Aussie in for a new set of intermediates while others stayed out, including teammate Yuki Tsunoda the Alpine of Esteban Ocon who opted not to pit during the safety car.
According to Ricciardo, this is where that the race was getting away from them. On a positive note, he did serve his penalty.
“When the rain was coming, we pitted for new inters while the others stayed out and we just lost track positions. I feel like the race was getting away from us.”
Ultimately as the conditions improved and the race gradually shifted into dry conditions, the Aussie came good. He avoided the crash between Sainz and Albon to gain two places, and he took advantage of Yuki Tsunoda’s spin to pass Esteban Ocon to take P8.
Ricciardo summed up his race by feeling relieved and happy due to the challenging conditions of the race.
“But then with the slick at the end we managed to claw our way pass some cars and get fortunately a nice little bag of points.
“All in all happy. This race [Canada] is hard to be perfect. Yeah, I made mistakes and we were just trying to survive at times. But happy we got there in the end.”
The Canadian Grand Prix was the first weekend that Ricciardo felt everything was in place from start to finish and compared his previous best weekend in Miami where he claimed the first half was good while the other half was not as good.
Ricciardo states that RB did everything right in the less-than-ideal conditions on Sunday and argues that the team needs to keep this level of consistency.
“You can’t expect to do a perfect race when it’s like this. But in all these conditions, we managed to still put out the results with a few challenges along the way. I’m happy.
“I’ve just got to keep it rolling. That little energy, probably a little bit of a chip on my shoulder I brought into the weekend, I’ve got to make sure that that stays there, and just keep that level of intensity.
“I don’t know if it’s the need to be a bit angry or just get my testosterone up, but I think it helps me.”
Canada was a solid result for RB and sees the Faenza-based outfit sitting in sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, trailing behind Aston Martin by 30 points. But they opened up the gap to Haas to 21 points.
Ricciardo is now 12th in the Drivers’ Championship with 9 points.
