Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo laments 'bit boring' Brazil outing

40

Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo hoped to spice things up in Brazil, but an aggressive race strategy failed to deliver results leaving the Aussie feeling somewhat deflated over how things unfolded.

"First three laps we made up some positions and then we went for an aggressive first stop, then when we put the prime on we didn't have the tyre life we thought we would so we still had to do a three stop race.

"We planned to do it aggressive. The option wasn't lasting that long, so I knew getting then with two primes to make it a two stop was going to be hard but we had to try it. I thought we would have got closer, but after 15 laps on the prime I knew we weren't going to make it that's when the team changed strategy."

After that Ricciardo was unable to make progress, although his highlight of the afternoon was a spirited battle with Force India's Sergio Perez.

"Parts of the race were a little bit boring, then I had a nice battle with Sergio for a few laps. I had to get around him twice, so that kept me excited.

"Pretty similar pace to the cars around us, we didn't really have a big advantage to capitalise, so we had to wait for Perez to have tyre deg and then we were able to attack him.

"Into turn one it's possible, but after that it's quite tight and the pace of everyone was similar, so it's hard. It's hard for us as well with Mercedes cars in front of us, to overtake them down the straight is not easy.

"We were able to get Perez but the others I wasn't able to make an imprint on," he added after finishing just outside the points in 11th place at Interlagos. "Bit of fun while it lasted, but otherwise all in all not the most exciting race."

In fact, Ricciardo sounded discouraged about the state of the sport as a whole in 2015, and was clearly hoping for a shake-up and big change over the winter in time for the next season for everyone's sake.

"There's one more race this year, but hopefully next year the races are going to be more exciting for the drivers and for the fans," he said.

"Last year was pretty pimpin' and this year has been a bit more stagnant, the same three guys on the podium every race, so I think everyone wants to see a bit of a change."

REPORT: Rosberg keeps Hamilton at bay to win in Brazil

AS IT HAPPENED: Brazilian Grand Prix

Use the red tabs on either side of the screen to scroll through more Formula One news and features

Click here for the Podium gallery from the Brazilian Grand Prix

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.