F1 | Racing Bulls disappoints in Sakhir and drivers risk the omelette

If Red Bull Racing started again where it left off, Racing Bulls – i.e. the former AlphaTauri – was unable to do the same. The first Grand Prix of the season held in Bahrain showed that, at least at low temperatures, the VCARB 01s are not yet ready to regularly aspire to the points zone. As if that wasn't enough, Sakhir was also the scene of a disagreement between Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda which almost resulted in a sensational accident.

Everything happened on the return lap, after the race was over. Yuki Tsunoda had not seen his position given back by Ricciardo, having given him the checkered flag a few laps earlier (on lap 50 of 57) to allow Daniel to attack a Magnussen who was at a disadvantage on the tire (Hard against Ricciardo's Soft).

At that point, furious and still full of adrenaline, Tsunoda overtook his teammate at full speed near turn 8, with the two VCARB 01s touching. Ricciardo, at that point, wasn't expecting such a maneuver from the Japanese. Fortunately for the team, the two cars remained on their trajectories without touching each other: it would have been a disaster also in terms of the resources to be invested and the limitations imposed by the Budget Cap.

At the end of the race, Tsunoda and Ricciardo gave their versions of what happened. Both before and after the checkered flag. The Japanese, obviously, did not send word.

“I was about to overtake Magnussen. I was alongside him on the main straight and I had to change my position with Ricciardo in the last laps. To be honest, I didn't understand what the team was thinking at that moment. Until now I didn't I understand”, declared Tsunoda at the end of the race.

“We talked about it before the race, we analyzed the strategy and we have some strategy plans that we could adopt,” explained Ricciardo. “It was very likely that starting with the new softs I would have finished the race with the new softs and done a final attack stint. The decision was quite obvious.”

“I know that when you're in the race you're a little more emotional and the situation is more intense, but this call wasn't a surprise. Obviously every lap is important when you're on this tire and trying to get some grip , so you have to react to the team's call. Also, we weren't in a points position yet, so there was nothing to lose. I let myself go and saw that I could do something.”

“In the end, whether I'm 13th or 14th, I don't know if any driver cares, I don't, so if the team had let him pass before the finish line I would have done so, because it means nothing to me,” he said. added. “Unless we're in the points, who cares?

“But in reality it's only if you're in the points. If he let me pass for ninth and he was tenth or whatever, then maybe we could swap again if I couldn't get eighth. But in that situation it didn't matter today “.

“It's one race in 24 and yes, there was a bit of conflict today, but I don't want this to become a tone. I think we'll talk about it now in the briefing, honestly. Hopefully once he calms down he can say: ' Ok, yes, I should have moved a lap earlier.”

Ricciardo, concluding his speech, then took a jab at the team and his teammate. The position change on lap 50 came too late. This, in his opinion, would have made the performance advantage of his set of new Soft tires disappear against those that equipped Magnussen's VF-24.

“Being completely transparent on my part, I think the call was already a lap too late and then he reacted too late,” Ricciardo explained.

“When the soft tire is like this, every lap is crucial. I think I probably already lost two and a half laps of good tires and this perhaps made the difference.”

“Could we have caught Stroll in 10th place? No. At most we could have caught Zhou. So, the points were still difficult, but we had to try to do something.”