“It already had the power and the charisma” – Daniel Ricciardo feels the qualifying performance on Saturday deserved to be rewarded with points.
Most drivers are of the opinion that half points should not have been awarded as no racing laps were completed on Sunday. The most vocal of them was Sebastian Vettel, who was P5 but did not want the points based on Saturday’s qualifying result.
“Bit of a joke, no? That’s a joke.
“If you want to get a reward for qualifying, you should get points for qualifying. What did we do today? I don’t know.”
It’s mad how people are whining about giving out half points for qualifying results in Spa. They’ve been giving out full points for qualifying in Monaco for years now #F1
— Joe (@JoeAeterno) August 30, 2021
Daniel Ricciardo feels half points are justified
Daniel Ricciardo disagreed with Vettel, as he felt the qualifying performance did merit awarding of points as there wasn’t a proper ‘race’ possible. The McLaren driver had qualified P4 and earned six championship points as a result.
“To be honest, I don’t know yet if it’s completely good or not but you can say it would be unfair not to hand out anything.
“Max did the hard work on Saturday, put his car on pole and probably would have won under these conditions because he was the only one with decent visibility. If I did not give any points at all, then in my view that would be unjustified.
“If I now look back on Saturday, I am very happy with qualifying. It already had the power and the charisma [to justify such a reward]. Fortunately, we will never end up in this situation again. Hopefully this will also be the very last time.”
