Daniel Ricciardo was one of the main protagonists in an otherwise rather unexciting Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
First he was the cause of a DRS train that lasted the entire course of the race, before he retired between the two Lesmo curves and triggered a late safety car phase.
Ricciardo is disappointed with a “stupid and sad end” to his race, as otherwise he would have scored four points from eighth place. “Unfortunately, 2022 is a pretty sad year for me as far as racing goes, but it is what it is.”
“There were no warning signs coming into the Lesmo corners and all of a sudden the car was off. And because there was no warning I was stuck in a gear so I tried to just park my car next to the racing line. “
Daniel Ricciardo “just not fast enough”
The Australian isn’t entirely happy with his race before either: “I was struggling to keep Gasly behind me. I think he was faster, so I was proud of not making any mistakes. It was a bit difficult out there, but I wish I had a few tenths more in there.”
As the leader of the DRS platoon, he was also forced to react early and come into the pits to fend off potential undercut attempts from behind. “I have tried, [den DRS-Zug] to break, but I just wasn’t fast enough. If I tried to get a few more tenths, I would slide and blow the tyres, so it was difficult.”
“But I felt like I had just enough to stop Gasly, but when Carlos and those guys came through it was difficult. We had to react. And even on the hard tire it was pretty tight and then it was hard to get a get real peak performance out of this tyre.”
Red flag for failure would have been “strange”.
With his late retirement, Ricciardo also triggered a controversy, as many drivers and team officials are of the opinion that the subsequent safety car phase lasted too long and that the race could have been restarted.
When asked if a red flag would have been better for his retirement, the McLaren driver says: “I’m not sure. I’ll have to look at it but usually a red flag only comes up when there’s an accident. I’ve parked my car on the side of the road and I think if they had shown the red flag straight away it would have been weird for everyone.”
“I heard that it was difficult for the marshals to move the car. It usually doesn’t take long to pull a car to a safe place in such a situation, but I think because the car was off and stuck in gear , maybe that was part of the problem.”
Slow corners again a problem for McLaren
When asked if he could still learn a few lessons from his race, Ricciardo says: “I said during the race that the chicane feels similar to the problems we had in Spa in the slow corners, like the last chicane there.”
“We still have a lot to fight there and a few more issues and hopefully we can learn a little bit more from that today. I think we know what it is but I’m not sure if we have a quick fix. But we’ll try. I don’t think it’s just downforce. There are a few other fundamental things that are tricky for us.”