Ricciardo frustrated VSC cost him chance of second

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Daniel Ricciardo admits he was left frustrated by a Virtual Safety Car period which cost him a chance of second place in the United States Grand Prix.

A good start saw Ricciardo overtake Nico Rosberg at Turn 1 and hold off the Mercedes during the first part of the race, forcing Rosberg onto an alternate strategy on medium tyres. However, a Virtual Safety Car [VSC] was required to clear Max Verstappen's car on lap 29 and allowed the two Mercedes drivers to save time pitting for a final time, resulting in Rosberg jumping Ricciardo who had already stopped.

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Ricciardo says he is unsure if Rosberg would have had the pace to catch him in the final stint but was left annoyed he didn't get the chance to defend the position on track.

“I think the actual launch itself didn’t seem that much stronger than the Mercedes on the soft tyre," Ricciardo said, having started on supersofts. "I was hoping it would go a bit better, but then Nico opted to go to the outside so I had some room on the inside there. I got one at least, I was hoping to get two but that was better than nothing.

"I think the first part of the race everyone seemed to have a pretty similar pace, I guess Lewis was probably controlling it at the front but we seemed at the stage to be able to hold onto second. Then the Virtual Safety Car we lost I think 10 seconds it worked out to be with Nico, so I believe after the pit stops we would have had about five seconds on him and after the Virtual Safety Car he had close to five seconds on me. So that was frustrating."

“It just would have been interesting, even if he caught me at the end, just to at least have a fight. I think the race after the Virtual Safety Car became a bit not that exciting. I guess without it would have made it a bit more spicy at the end. So that was that.

"Unfortunately third was the outcome but it’s still nice to be on the podium. It’s a cool place, I’ve always loved it here. Everything, the anthem before the race kind of gives you goosebumps, and then the crowd obviously on the podium is pretty cool. It’s been a good weekend.”

Asked if it made matters worse that the VSC was triggered by his own team-mate, Ricciardo jokingly replied in a Texan accent: “Absolutely, Sir.

"When I saw Max out there I thought ‘Ah hell, my boy’s done it again!’. Anyways, that was a devestational moment, but we’ll keep soldiering on and we still got some points over Ferrari today so I'm pretty pleased with that.”

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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.