The head of the RB team, Laurent Mekies, regretted the incident that took Daniel Ricciardo out of the Formula 1 Chinese GP. The Australian had been showing good progress and was fighting to stay in the scoring zone, before being hit from behind in a mistake. Lance Stroll.
Ricciardo was in ninth position under the Safety Car when he suffered significant damage to the floor after being hit by Stroll in turn 14. The Canadian received a ten-second penalty for the contact, but this did not alleviate the injury to the RB driver, who was forced to to abandon the race.
Yuki Tsunoda was also unlucky. On the restart, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen hit the Japanese driver’s rear wheel at the exit of turn 5, causing a spin and also ending his participation.
Mekies believes that both drivers involved in the collisions could have avoided the accidents, and hopes that such incidents do not become frequent.
“I don’t know for sure, but both cases seemed unnecessary,” Mekies told Autosport when asked about the origin of the accidents. “These were not situations in which the accident seemed inevitable. I hope these were isolated cases in a normally intense dispute.”
With Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg taking advantage of the confusion to win the last point up for grabs, RB were frustrated at losing the chance to fight for a points result.
“It was a huge missed opportunity,” Mekies added. “We lost both cars due to touches from other drivers on the same lap. It’s a big setback. We felt that we could fight for the point with the other competitors in that position. It would be an exciting contest.”
“Just before the Safety Car, Daniel was attacking Lewis (Hamilton). We were at a strong pace and on the right tires. We believe it could have been a fair battle with Nico for tenth position,” he added.
Despite the negative result, Mekies highlighted positive points for RB. The team recovered from a difficult start to the weekend and Ricciardo performed better compared to the difficult start to the season.
“But that’s what happens. That’s motorsport and it didn’t go well for us. However, it is positive that we had the pace to fight for the only available point, even though we started a little behind on Friday. The race pace was there. And it’s good to see Daniel performing at this level, he’s been making good strides behind the scenes”, concluded Mekies.
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