Daniel Ricciardo suffered a reliability problem with his car in the 37th lap and had to retire from the race.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo faced a reliability issue with his car in lap 37 of the Saudi Arabian GP and had to retire from the race.
Ricciardo suddenly stopped right on at the entrance of the pit lane. The car was pushed to the McLaren garage from the track. The Australian told his crew on the radio, “I’ve got no drive. I can’t accelerate.”
There were three back to back to retirements from the race including Ricciardo’s. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso faced trouble with his car due to power failure. Alpine’s team boss Otmar Szafnauer was disappointed after Alonso had to retire.
Szafnauer said, “It’s too early to tell, I don’t know, reported loss of power. It’s a shame because he was doing a great job in the race.” Later Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas had to retire as well due to a technical issue.
Ricciardo’s teammate, however, finished P7 and it seems like the McLaren team is doing better than Bahrain GP.
When asked about what he thinks the issue may have been, Ricciardo said, “I lost drive. It could be a number of things. Maybe a drive shaft, if I was to guess, but I am not a mechanic so don’t take my word for it.”
“But yeah, I think we could have added double points which is pretty awesome from where we were a week ago. There are positive takes from the weekend for sure. So yeah, we still have a lot to go but certainly some progress which is nice.”
Also Read: Max Verstappen breaks Sebastian Vettel record after winning Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2022
Daniel Ricciardo thinks racing is fun this year
McLaren did not have an ideal weekend in Bahrain but they sure seem to have made improvements in Saudi Arabia.
Despite finishing the race in Bahrain at P14 with 0 points and having to retire from the race in Jeddah again with 0 points, the Australian driver thinks that the racing this year is fun.
He said, “I think everything that we hoped would come out of the car this year, so far, it is very true. So I’m really happy with that.”
“Watching the battle for the lead, it is really awesome to see that racing. Of course, I want to be there but to know that we can’t fight hard like that this year it’s really exciting. So, hopefully, we’ll be battling for a bigger position soon.”
Talking about the upcoming Australian GP and the changes that they have made to the track in Melbourne, the McLaren driver said, “the changes are going to be quite flowing.”
“Hopefully that suits us and I think for racing it’s going to be good fun. So, we’ll see.”
The 32-year-old did not shy away from showing his happiness for going to his homeland for the next race. He said, “Yeah I’m excited to go home and compete there.”
“Although we can’t promise amazing results yet, we’re gonna keep adding and I’m sure some better things are on the horizon.”
Also Read: Lewis Hamilton unknown to F1’s scoring system following his P10 finish in Saudi Arabia
