Daniel Ricciardo’s positive-looking Chinese GP came to a premature end following a collision with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll. Ten days have passed since the incident, but Ricciardo reveals that Stroll still hasn’t apologized.
Ahead of the Miami GP weekend, Ricciardo states that Stroll made no attempt to contact him whatsoever. On the other hand, Ricciardo doesn’t see the matter getting resolved with an apology either. As quoted by Planet F1, Ricciardo said,
“If he texted just saying, ‘Yeah, you know, my bad’, whatever. Okay, I can accept an apology. I’m not that much of an a**ehole. But the fact that there’s not even that, he clearly doesn’t think he did anything wrong. So I guess there’s not much to say.”
Ricciardo’s approach to describing his incident with Stroll was much calmer in Miami than it was two weeks ago in China. Ricciardo didn’t hold back while lashing out at the Canadian in Shanghai, but seems to be in a much better mood heading into the race this weekend.
Ricciardo added that he wouldn’t ignore Stroll if he sat next to him at the drivers’ briefing. Putting himself in the Aston Martin driver’s shoes, the 34-year-old admits that when he was young, he too could be stubborn at times and refuse to apologize for his mistakes.
However, over the last few years, Ricciardo feels he has grown more mature. He makes sure to apologize for ruining a driver’s day, in case he makes unforeseen errors on the track.
Footage from the Chinese GP suggested that Stroll’s mistake caused the collision with Ricciardo. The honey badger was adamant that it was Stroll’s fault but the latter called Ricciardo an “idiot” after the race, and maintains his stance.
Lance Stroll draws flak for his comments on Daniel Ricciardo
Stroll criticized Ricciardo for braking as hard as he did in China. The race stewards, however, found the Aston Martin driver guilty of the crash and penalized him, which Red Bull chief Helmut Marko feels was well deserved.
The Austrian found Stroll’s mistake baffling and he insisted that the 25-year-old robbed Red Bull’s sister team off points.
Following his chassis change in China, Ricciardo was in clear contention for points for the first time in 2024. Unfortunately, a three-place grid penalty, two penalty points to his superlicense and a damaged car ended his Chinese Grand Prix early.
The Perth-born driver is currently under immense pressure at V-CARB. He started the season wanting to take over Sergio Perez’s seat at Red Bull but after zero points in the first-five races, Ricciardo is battling for survival in their sister-team instead.
