Ricciardo: Miserable US GP a story of ‘misfortune’

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.”

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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.”

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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