The Sao Paulo GP did not go as per plan for Daniel Ricciardo as he was unfortunately caught up in the lap 1 tangle between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen. As per a report by Motorsport.com, the Australian driver recalls how he was ducking in his cockpit after seeing a tire carcass flying his way.
Ricciardo reminisced about the incident and said, “I saw a tire off the rim frisbeeing through the air and it started getting closer. So, I remember kind of also ducking my head and I didn’t feel anything hit me.”
The whole incident had kicked off when Nico Hulkenberg got sandwiched between the cars of Magnussen and Albon heading into turn 1. With nowhere to go, Hulkenberg made contact with Albon’s left rear, which led to the Williams shunting off into the car of Magnussen.
Both the Haas and the Williams went off the track following the collision which gave Ricciardo the opportunity to make up some good positions. However, he would also then become a victim of a crash when a loose tire rim came off from Albon’s car and hit the AlphaTauri’s rear wing.
Daniel Ricciardo admits to feeling relieved after the race
Ricciardo immediately fell down the order and the Honey Badger admits that it was indeed frustrating for him. However, once things calmed down after the race, the AlphaTauri driver also admits to feeling relieved as things could have been much worse if the tire had hit him instead of the rear wing.
He said, “That was obviously frustrating. Now you look back at those things and it’s nice that it didn’t hit me.” Ricciardo had to pull into the pits immediately after the end of lap 1 and would have had to retire if not for an immediate red flag.
The red flag gave his engineers crucial time to fix his car and send him back out on the track. However, the race was already gone since he had to start from one lap down because he had pulled into the pits a lap before the red flag and did not complete the subsequent lap.
Ricciardo managed a P13 finish at the end, with Tsunoda finishing P9 and bringing home two crucial points for AlphaTauri. Given the fact that Williams came away from Brazil with no points at all, AlphaTauri should be satisfied with the results.
