Ricciardo fed up with fourth after “boring” race

2016 British Grand Prix

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Daniel Ricciardo said he’s fed up of finishing in fourth place after a “boring” British Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver was one of the first to pit to get rid of the wet weather tyres. However the Virtual Safety Car was deployed shortly afterwards, allowing the cars he had been racing to make their pit stops with less time loss and pull ahead.

“I thought that was boring,” Ricciardo admitted after the race. “We just got a bit unlucky with the Virtual Safety Car and lost the gap to the leaders, so it put me in a race by myself”.

[Sergio] Perez was in front for a little bit but we knew once we cleared him then it was just trying to hope something would happen up front or whatever”.

Ricciardo has now finished fourth five times this year. “I’m definitely over these fourth places,” he said. “Unfortunately there was really just not much happening the race. We just got unlucky with the Virtual Safety Car, it came at the wrong time and we lost more than ten seconds there.”

However the Red Bull driver defended the strategy. “I don’t think we made the wrong decision,” he said, “from what I’ve seen at the time we just got unlucky”.

“We were talking a lot,” he added. “At the time it all seemed OK but it was just a boring race. Nothing to fight for, no one to fight with”.

“I wanted some action today,” Ricciardo reflected. “I think you could tell after yesterday I was ready to actually have a bit of a fight with someone but sometimes it just doesn’t work. That’s just how it was”.

2016 British Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    36 comments on “Ricciardo fed up with fourth after “boring” race”

    1. Excuses, excuses!

      1. The VSC really did cement the top 3 positions right away…

        1. But even without the VSC he didn’t have the pace Verstappen had.

          1. The lap times tell a different story, they were very close.

            1. ColdFly F1 (@)
              11th July 2016, 15:16

              That was after the VSC.
              on the inters VES was a lot faster (5.5s over 9 laps, incl. an overtake on ROS)

    2. Arnoud van Houwelingen
      10th July 2016, 15:44

      He was losing a lot of time with intermediates in clean air after pass of Perez compared to Max so regardless of the VSC he would have finished 4th

    3. He doesn’t show he got the pace to compete with front runners too. With how long Rosberg and Verstappen fight each other, if he can do Verstappen pace on clean air, at least he can try to join their battle.

    4. I think Ric was struggling since Max came into RBR. He was with the car more than Max and lets not forget he has way worse issues back in duration of first 4 races i remember Shanghai where Ric was leading then got a puncture and claw back to P4. Now today he might have given up chasing the leaders in order to save tires or he might not have the pace to do that but over all Max was clearly faster since Montreal and able to nurse tires much better than Ric can do.
      Surprising thing for me how Ric who was able to manage the tires so well is struggling with wear
      is Max unlocking a pace that’s too much for him in a single stint or is he was over driving to compensate the deficit.
      Ive never seen a driver who was so fast now struggle with the wear like this in the very same season and same car.

      1. Ive never seen a driver who was so young, came to a new team…and was so quick in just his 6th race ;D

        1. Obviously i like how Max is developing and extracting more pace im just finding it hard to believe how Ric lost his pace which puts the question again did Ric lost his pace or he just didn’t have the pace at all compared to max

          1. Ricciardo was only truly special in 2014. Maybe a case of being in the form of his life. Form is temporary class is permenant. He may now settle into the Australian Red Bull driver role of occasionally challenging your much better younger superstar teammate occasionally.

            1. Then Max too moves to Scuderia Ferrari and becomes the next Schumacher.

        2. Hamilton did that 9 years ago ;P

          1. But Hamilton wasn’t 18 :D

          2. @sonicslv and HAM had something like 10k kms of testing under his belt before the season started.

        3. he’s the number 1 on the team, has been since his first race, it’s just taken this long for him to out qualify his teammate.

    5. Here in Spain the usual suspects are saying that Red Bull is boycotting his car

    6. The fact that Max could batlle a Mercedes, was 2 sec faster then Lewis on intermediates and kept bothe Mercedesses in sight on mediums shows that Max is a rare extraordinaire talent.

      So if Ricciardo can’t keep up it’s just what all the other drivers experienced that raced against Max. Your going up against someone out of league.
      At 18.
      It’s hard.

      1. has nothing to do with Max, has everything to do with how Red Bull work their team with a clear #1 and #2. RIC is done at RBR, just like Webber was. Maybe RIC can get a job at Ferrari ? Him and Hamilton would make a pretty potent combination I think.

        1. Tin foil hat too much?

        2. Till now RIC has been favoured by the team consistantly, obvious as he is leading on points.
          Monaco, new engine. Baku, better position for Q3, Austria, better position for Q3 again.

          Things will turn the other way once Ves will lead RBR on points.

          1. How about the Monaco pitstop?

    7. He seems baffled at the fact that Max, as the mysterious man he is, is just getting stronger and stronger by the minute. He’s strong everywhere, qualy, wet pace, defending, attacking. And the more time he spends in the car, the better he is. It’s like there’s no limit to his skill, which is understandable given how young he is.

      So Daniel, as much as I love him, is losing out badly. Since Monaco his pace seems to have dropped a lot compared to Max. And the prospects of him finding another gear somewhere and making a jump in performance in relation to the other car in his garage are not good!

      1. Obviously there is a limit. For instance, he isn’t the best qualifier and trailing Ric in that respect, far beyond Monaco. He does however have, more often than not, superior race pace, even before Monaco.

    8. Apparently Verstappen is having very fun races…

    9. Verstappen is astonishing. Simples. His race pace and tyre conservation is better than Ricciardo’s, there is no other explanation. Ricciardo is really good at getting everything out of that car over one lap, Verstappen has more trouble finding the limit, but is better at staying right on it during the race. He is outscoring Ricciardo and you can’t but be amazed at his ability.

    10. Qualify better, Daniel.

    11. It’s going to be hard for Ricciardo.
      Verstappen will improve each round, better raise the game up…soon

      1. Ric has not had the ‘rub of the green’ this year, he is a proven multi race winner and should of bagged another 2 this year except for poor luck, l can understand why he is frustrated…. though Ric will win many more races in F1.

    12. Pretty much, SC start, and VSC neutralised any chance Riciardo had at a podium.

      But that is a poor excuse, teammate in same car was better at quali and race… Terifying prospect, and now finished higher in 4/6 races toggether.

      1. And the race Ricciardo did finish higher Verstappen was far more impressive

    13. F1 can be so cruel. In the form of his life RIC gets stuck with a superstar teenage teammate. I feel so sorry for the loveble ausie.

    14. How much time did the cars that pitted right after the SC came in lose to the driver’s who stayed out and pitted during the VSC period? What was the delta time for the VSC anyway? I feel like that played a big part in taking RIC out of contention for A a podium because it helped PER get ahead of him after losing time to the front runners by pitting earlier.

    15. Yes another disappointing race for Ricciardo, but to say it was down to the VC I think is being pretty disingenuous to Verstappen. I’m not sure what Ricciardo was doing at the start of the race but when the safety car came in he was miles behind Verstappen when he should have been in his mirrors. I think he got caught napping. As a fellow Aussie I’m a massive Ricciardo fan but fair play to Verstappen, especially at the start in the wet and the pass on Rosberg was pretty special. Oh well, bring on the next race…

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