"What's frustration is I've watched his onboard and he's not even looking at me," says an unimpressed Daniel Ricciardo after Lance Stroll hit him up the back at Chinese GP restart; stewards handed Stroll a 10-second penalty for incident that put Ricciardo out of promising race
Sunday 21 April 2024 14:27, UK
Daniel Ricciardo accused Lance Stroll of "not even looking at me" before the Aston Martin driver rammed into the back of his RB car amid a chaotic restart in the Chinese GP.
Ricciardo and Stroll were running ninth and 10th respectively behind the Safety Car at the end of lap 26 as the pack bunched up approaching the hairpin in preparation for the race restart.
But as the cars ahead of him slowed for the right-hander, Stroll appeared to be caught out by the concertina effect and inadvertently steamed into the back of Ricciardo, with the impact sufficient to briefly lift the RB off its back wheels.
The stewards found Stroll "predominantly to blame" for the collision, which caused Ricciardo's retirement, and handed him a 10-second penalty, plus added two points to his superlicence.
Ricciardo, who was having his best weekend of a difficult season so far, was left unimpressed by Stroll's driving.
"It's a restart, so we don't know what the leader is going to do, so you have to be as vigilant as ever and be prepared for any situation," Ricciardo told Sky Sports F1.
"I could see it was bunching up into the hairpin, so everyone was backing up, but how hard he's hit me and pretty much put half of his car under mine, it wasn't a small lack of judgement, it was miles off.
"For that, for me, there's no excuse.
"What's frustration is I've watched his onboard and he's not even looking at me, you can see his helmet and he's looking at the apex of the corner.
"I don't know why he wasn't looking at me, unless his eyes were doing something funny.
"He was clearly focused on something else."
During his press briefing with the written media, Ricciardo was asked about Stroll's initial comments over team radio in which he appeared to describe the Australian as an "idiot".
"I'd slowly started to calm down and then I was told what Lance thinks of the incident," Ricciardo said. "And apparently I'm an idiot. And it was my fault.
"So, that made my blood boil. Because it's clear as day - and it's also behind a safety car.
"The only thing you've got to do is watch the car in front, we can't predict what the leader is going to do. We can't assume that we're going to go in Turn 14. The race doesn't start until the control line.
"I'm doing my best not to say what I want to say. But **** that guy - and I'm being nice still."
Ricciardo added that he would not "go harder" on Stroll because he thought the Aston Martin driver might "take some accountability" once he had seen replays of the incident.
The Canadian driver, who had qualified 11th and had looked on course for a points finish, was disappointed but philosophical about what had happened when speaking after the race.
"It was just a concertina effect in the hairpin which was one of those stupid incidents," Stroll told Sky Sports F1.
"Someone at the front of the pack, I don't know who it was, probably braked and then that caught everyone by surprise.
"I was, I guess, the guy that hit the guy in front of me. I really had nowhere to go. We we were going 60kph and then all of a sudden the whole train in front of me just stopped and I had nowhere to go.
"I didn't want to hit Daniel obviously, it was a shame. We were on for eighth or ninth having a good race. One of those ones to put behind us."
Stroll, who later engaged in an entertaining wheel-to-wheel duel with Kevin Magnussen - the recipient of his own 10-second time penalty after spinning around the other RB of Yuki Tsunoda on the first lap after the restart - was eventually classified 15th.
After viewing various camera angles and telemetry data in their investigation into the Stroll-Ricciardo accident, Shanghai stewards said the Aston Martin driver "ought to have anticipated the pace of the cars in front".
"The cars were all travelling slowly to set up for the restart of the race towards the end of a Safety Car period," read the stewards' verdict on the incident.
"The car in front of Car 18 [Stroll] slowed to take the corner and also to try to match the pace of the group of cars in front of it. Car 18 then collided with Car 3 [Ricciardo].
"We determined that Car 18 ought to have anticipated the pace of the cars in front, particularly Car 3 and should have prepared to brake accordingly.
"Had it done that, it would have avoided the collision. Hence Car 18 was predominantly to blame for the collision that ultimately led to Car 3 having to retire from the race."
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