Daniel Ricciardo denies that his first-lap crash with Alex Albon at the Japanese Grand Prix marks a continuation of his struggles during the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Ricciardo has endured a tough opening to the campaign but showed an improved turn of speed at Suzuka to come within 0.055 seconds of Q3 as he qualified 11th.
However, the Australian’s chance to capitalise on that encouraging starting berth was curtailed on the opening lap as he ended up in the barrier at Turn 3 with Albon.
Ricciardo had opted to start on the Medium compound and was battling with Lance Stroll on the approach to the corner when Albon’s soft-shod Williams spied a gap.
But Ricciardo had failed to catch Albon in his blind spot coming around the outside and squeezed him towards the extremities of the track, resulting in a minor touch.
“We definitely got gobbled up on that Medium,” Ricciardo admitted. “That was weird because the cars in front of us look like they got off the line well.
“I guess [George] Russell, pretty sure everyone in front is on the Medium. So it just looks like Yuki [Tsunoda] and I didn’t have the grip that we anticipated.
“And yeah, as soon as we launched, I could see [Valtteri] Bottas and [Nico] Hulkenberg just split us and go around. And then into one, I was in the middle, I think with Yuki and Alpine swim by, Turn 2 I thought all right, let’s just settle. And I soon as I got on the throttle, I was still struggling.
“So then I think Stroll was on my outside. So I was trying to hold him off. And then I guess as I’ve started to come back for three, Albon’s there.
“And I watched his onboard. And yeah, I mean, I don’t even know if he wanted to be there.
“But his traction was so much better on the Soft that he was like, well, there’s space, until there wasn’t, so I didn’t see him.
“But honestly, I always assume maybe someone is there. It’s lap one so I never tried to let’s say use the full width of the track and be completely ignorant.
“But yeah, I guess there was obviously not enough room.”
Ricciardo has admitted that starting on the grippiest Soft rubber to have the best traction from the line would have been the optimal choice for his race in hindsight.
“All things considered, if we could wind back the clock an hour, I would start on the Soft,” he continued.”
“But for the record, I wanted to be on the Medium. That’s not something I fought against. But knowing what we know, now the soft would have been a lot a lot better for us.”
Asked if it was more frustrating that a possible points finish went begging, Ricciardo said: “It is. I think also yesterday, I was obviously frustrated not to make it by half a tenth.
“But there was some positives, you know, there was some things that we felt like we could probably show today.
“And yeah, lap one incidents, they’re the worst, because there’s always those questions. Oh, what could have been, maybe we could have done this.
“So yeah, shame for not only us as a team, but Alex, and you never want to see someone go out on lap one.”
Ricciardo has qualified behind team-mate Tsunoda at each of the four rounds this season and the Japanese driver has bagged all seven of RB’s points at this stage.
However, Ricciardo is treating his unfortunate clash with Albon – which the stewards deemed a racing incident – as an isolated episode from his woes prior to that.
“I think today is a singular moment, I guess in terms of I don’t look at today and think, oh man this year, like when it rains, it pours, or whatever,” he explained.
“I feel it was just one of those things. We know that 24 races, it’s probably likely that maybe I’m involved in another lap one incident, it’s just probability in that.
“So these things kind of happen. It obviously sucks when they do, but I don’t look at it any more than today, being a kind of singular incident.
“Of course, would have been nice to get a race under our belt and tried to show a little bit of something that I felt we were starting to show yesterday.
“But yeah, we’ll do that in China. I actually test here on Tuesday. So the laps that I missed today. I’ll get back on Tuesday.”
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