Not just Max Verstappen. At Red Bull – albeit in a different garage – the Dutchman was not the only one to be furious about the wrong strategy adopted by his team at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Daniel Ricciardo, who had an excellent qualifying performance on Saturday in which he finished ninth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, found himself the victim of a decision that proved to be spectacularly wrong at the Hungaroring, depriving him and the team of a possible double points finish which, at this time, is vital for Racing Bulls in the fight with Haas.
The team’s mistake arose in the timing of the first pit stop. Ricciardo did a very short first stint of the race on the Medium tyres, resulting in him being blocked by the Williams of Alexander Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
Albon made his pit stop on lap 6, while Ricciardo made his first stop on the following lap, finding himself behind the two cars already in front of him, thus remaining stuck behind them.
Ricciardo made his second pit stop on lap 28, when he was already 20 seconds behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda. While the Japanese driver made a one-stopper, finishing ninth and thus in the points, Daniel was stuck in 12th, finishing the race 25 seconds behind his teammate.
At the end of the race, the Australian driver certainly did not hide his frustration at his team’s wrong strategy.
“I’m hugely frustrated. The reason they brought me in at the beginning was… we followed the group of cars that had just come in, we had a clear track, and we decided to come in behind them and get into a DRS train. And it was like… then on the same tire, everyone on a hard, so… it was, I mean, well, I’ve had a lot of races and a lot of frustrating ones. But this is a next-level race. Because we had the pace and we basically gave Yuki the race that we had in front of us. We both could have done it. But we didn’t.”
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team
Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool
“I didn’t have time to ask why they did this. You call as late as possible, “box box box” and you go to the pits. But honestly, as soon as I enter the pits… Well, I asked myself some questions. And I… but you can’t. You know, they call you at turn 13 and you have to react. But… Let’s talk about strategies and this… but. Two cars overtook us at the start with a soft tyre. No problem. Let’s let them go. They go to the pits and we follow them. Then follow their strategy”.
“We would have had free air and the chance to do, I think, Yuki’s race. So yeah, then… I don’t know… Honestly, I expected more. At the halfway point I expected a ‘I’m sorry. We screwed up.’ And I didn’t get it. And that made me even angrier.”
“I don’t know if my strategy allowed Yuki to score points, but from what I understand we both could have done it. We were both fast enough to bring them home. We had the right pace all weekend. Unless I’m missing something… I think I’ll know more next weekend.”
“Unfortunately we made a mistake with Daniel, making him pit too early in heavy traffic and thus losing the chance to fight for points,” said Mekies.
“His pace was extremely strong all weekend and he showed it once again in the final stint of the race, when he was finally able to find some free air and fight for his comeback.”
“We certainly share his frustration and we will learn and come back stronger next week.”
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