Due to George Russell’s disqualification post-race, Daniel Ricciardo left Spa with a point for finishing P10. The much-loved Aussie was pleased with his race even before the news of the point promotion. This confidence, having started P13, should serve Ricciardo well as he looks to secure his F1 future in the coming months.
RB went for a two-stop race in Belgium for the final Grand Prix prior to the summer break. Ricciardo spoke post-race and revealed his mindset and the current level of competitiveness.
“I think we had a really good race, I just think some other drivers, also had a really good race, and that’s that,” Ricciardo stated when reflecting in the paddock.
With a P13 start, RB put the driver of car number 3 on a soft tyre which was an aggressive move since the majority of cars on the grid had opted for medium with some taking the hard. Ricciardo was asked as to whether starting on softs was the right thing to do.
“I think it obviously stopped us from maybe attempting a one-stop, but I was able to stay with the guys on medium in the first stint, so, for the two-stop it probably didn’t change too much in the end,” Ricciardo accepted. “So, yeah, I felt like we, every time we pitted, I think we were able to undercut the car and get a bit of track position and hold it, so, yeah, look, we started 13th, we moved, we got a couple of positions up, so I think we did have a good race, we did move forward.”
Ricciardo drove an impressive race in Belgium and prior to the Russell post-race DQ would have been out of the points after being overtaken by Esteban Ocon with just 4 laps remaining. The 35-year-old explained his thought process as he saw a priceless point slip away – temporarily at least.
“It was hard because I knew some cars were going to try one stop. I didn’t really know my position during the race, and I knew it would kind of all work out, and in my head I was kind of saying, yeah, pace is strong, I know there’s some kind of quick cars not too far ahead, so I really thought we would have ended up in the points, so, when I had Ocon behind me, I think that’s when I knew I was 10th, and I was like, ‘ah, I really thought I was maybe 9th’ because I knew that holding him off was going to be tricky, I think he was strong all weekend, and also he just came out on a fresher tyre, so obviously, you have, you know, you try and say, alright, let’s, let’s fight, but I knew it was going to be tricky, so once he got past, I, knew we’d just miss out on points.”
Mercedes’ pain – on Russell’s side of the garage – resulted in RB’s gain as Ricciardo recorded a timely third top-ten finish of the 2024 F1 season with 10 race weekends still to come.
RB have enjoyed a very strong first half of the season and scored points at 10 out of 14 races. At present they are P6 in the Constructors’ Championship with a 7-point advantage over their closest rival Haas. Laurent Mekies, RB Team Principal, reflected on his team’s performance and clearly showed momentum is in RB’s favour with the summer break’s arrival.
“Overall, Daniel, Yuki, and the whole team performed quite strongly this weekend, with another race scoring points thanks to George’s last-minute penalty.” said Mekies. “We were P14 with Daniel after lap one, and we made it back to P10, having lost P9 only a couple of laps from the end. It was a very tough fight again at the top of that midfield group, and on a very fast track layout like Spa we were again in that fight and that’s a good sign for the rest of the season.”
