Finally, Daniel Ricciardo got what he wanted.
The Australian was frustrated after Monday morning’s Hungarian Grand Prix, lamenting a costly strategic decision that doomed his chances of scoring points.
Ricciardo had qualified ninth fastest but, having dropped two places early in the race, fell further back when RB decided to send him into the pits after eight laps.
This came despite Ricciardo starting the race on medium tyres and the 35-year-old was clearly upset after the race when speaking to engineer Pierre Hamelin.
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“I’m trying to bite my tongue, but you know how I feel at this first stop,” Ricciardo said.
“Understood,” Hamelin replied.
“If you feel the same, please,” Ricciardo added, apparently putting pressure on Hamelin to acknowledge that it was a wrong decision.
“We’ll review everything. I don’t know what to say now,” Hamelin replied.
Ricciardo later told reporters he was expecting a “sorry, we screwed up” on the in-lap but received nothing, which only made him “angrier”.
Now, even if it came much later than expected, RB has admitted that it made a mistake.
Team principal Laurent Mekies said in regular interviews published on F1’s official website that they “made a mistake” by having Ricciardo pit so early.
“Unfortunately, we made a mistake with Daniel and stopped him too early in heavy traffic, which cost him the chance to fight for points,” he said.
“His pace had been extremely strong all weekend and he showed that again in the final stint of the race, when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back. “We certainly share his frustration, and we will learn and come back stronger next week. We now move on to Spa, a very different challenge to the Hungaroring.
“We are going there with the positives from our good weekend and we will do our best to make our car work as well as possible on this fast and flowing track.”
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Head of Car Performance Guillaume Dezoteux also explained why the team made the decision to bring Ricciardo into the pits so early.
“Both cars had a good start but lost positions on the soft tyres in the first few laps,” he said.
“Some cars pitted early and we reacted with Daniel, which put him in a traffic jam and did not allow him to use his pace. Anticipating his second stop allowed us to recover some positions and Daniel was able to show good lap times, but it was not enough to finish in the points and he finished 12th.
“Yuki and I decided to extend the first stint. His good tyre management and consistent lap times opened up the possibility of doing a one-stop race, which is what we were looking for.”
“This strategy allowed us to beat both Aston Martins, which is a great achievement and concludes this weekend on a high note.”
