Daniel Ricciardo says he couldn’t catch a break in last Sunday’s US Grand Prix, the AlphaTauri charger ruing damage and a poorly timed pit stop that combined to undermine his efforts.
Ricciardo closed out the field at The Circuit of the Americas, a race that was tough on the Aussie who returned to the grid after a two-month absence following his crash at Zandvoort at the end of August.
While Ricciardo’s injured hand was not a source of concern, his fitness level was challenged in the 56-lap race.
“I actually felt probably worse [after the Saturday sprint race]… so maybe that was just a good little good warm up for me. There's positives,” he said.
“The hand is no excuse. I think that was good. We did well with the timing of the return to have no hesitations or excuses.
“Physically, it's definitely a tougher race. I still felt OK, we were just limited with damage.”
After reaching the half-way mark, Ricciardo ran as high as 12th, but damage inflicted to a brake duct by a piece of debris upset his car’s aero balance, while being released in traffic following his final pitstop also threw a spanner in the works.
“Unfortunately, we picked up some damage,” he said. "I told the team that, ‘I'm sorry, guys, I got nothing right now. I really can't do anything’.
“That made our race a pretty miserable one. At best, we’re a top-10 car and when you put damage into it, we are certainly out of the points.
“Definitely most of our day today was misfortune, let's say.”
©AlphaTauri
Ahead of next weekend’s round of racing in Mexico, the second leg of F1’s triple-header, Ricciardo drew overall a positive conclusion regarding his return to action.
“At times, we lacked communication but I think especially once I got the damage, nothing really felt that constructive to give back because we're working with a suboptimal car,” he said.
“For sure, there's things which I take confidence from: some race fitness, the hand, a few things, which even just getting behind the wheel in FP1 like lap one, I felt like I was able to push and lean on it.
“There's certainly some inner confidence in that. But I would say in race conditions, next week I'll do better.”
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