Daniel Ricciardo frustrated with Sunday loss

March 27, 2017 2:58 am

F1 Update: Daniel Ricciardo suffered blow after blow on Sunday as life went from bad to worse for the Aussie star.
First off he suffered a penalty that pushed him back from 10th to 15th on the grid, but he ended up starting from pit lane after a horror mishap 20 minutes before the scheduled start of the race.
His car stopped on the track and had to be towed away because a gearbox failure left him stuck in sixth gear. There were fears he wouldn’t even race at all but he made it onto the circuit after his rivals had already completed a couple of laps.
He was never going to mow down the pack but he was robbed of the chance to even cross the finish line when he suffered a suspected engine failure 29 laps into the 57-lap race.
“Let’s get the f*** out of here,” Ricciardo said over the team radio.
Red Bull’s strategy cost Ricciardo a win in Spain last year and a bungled pit stop robbed him of a near-certain victory in Monaco, so you’d forgive the 27-year-old for losing his cool over yet another failure that was out of his control.
But instead he was philosophical in his response to a disastrous day. He didn’t publicly vent any anger towards his team, saying he was looking ahead to China.
“On the plus side I’m getting out of here. It’s been a long week,’’ Ricciardo said.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun, but I feel bad for everyone, bad for the fans. I believe there are more people here supporting me than the others and I’m sure they would have loved me to get out and race.
“But it just snowballed from yesterday and the five-grid penalty sounded bad enough and then obviously we had other issues.
“Just a long day and happy to move on. It’s OK, obviously I’m disappointed today, but I’ll wake up tomorrow and be fine and ready to prepare to go to China.’’
Ricciardo was pleased to get nearly 30 laps in at Albert Park because it helped improve his knowledge of the new RB13, and he was also complimentary towards teammate Max Verstappen.
However, he still delivered a blunt admission on his true feelings after the race.
“It was good to get 20-odd laps, whatever I got, I learned quite a few things with the car, I feel I learned where we need to improve. I was behind a few slower cars and in the traffic and assess some of the strengths and weaknesses,” Ricciardo said.
“It was good to get out there for a few laps. Max’s pace looks pretty good at the moment so that’s something hopefully we can build from and learn from.
“I’ll be right, I’ll wake up tomorrow, feel good. It’s been a long week, I feel like crap, but obviously the fans and everyone, it’s not how we would have liked the opener to go.’’
It was another heartbreaking Australian Grand Prix for the local hero, who finished second on the podium in 2014, but was later disqualified for a fuel-flow breach.
“I certainly feel for the fans as much as I feel sorry for myself, I feel for them,’’ Ricciardo said.
“They cheered when I stopped on the warm-up lap, when I stopped in the race, they still cheered and I still heard them showing a lot of support.
“That goes a long way, it makes me stand here right now feeling a lot better about myself than if I didn’t have that.
“It’s been a long week, but they have been here from the start, so I definitely appreciate them and I wish it would have gone better this weekend for them as well.”