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Ricciardo astonished: "The tires were completely dead two laps later"

16 November 2020 at 11:23
Last update 16 November 2020 at 11:51
  • GPblog.com

The opening lap of the Turkish Grand Prix, was one to forget for Renault as Daniel Ricciardo caused his teammate, Esteban Ocon to spin, leaving them with an uphill task for the rest of the race.

"I had the Mercedes on the inside, there was nothing I could do. I'm sorry," the Australian apologised via the onboard radio to his team. On Motorsport-Total.com Ricciardo continued: "We knew it was going to be a wild race. You can take advantage of that, but for us it was soon over. I've looked at the repetition a couple of times now to make sure there was nothing else I could have done to prevent it."

Ricciardo had nowhere to go

The qualification of the driver from Perth was promising with a fifth-place behind the Red Bulls and Racing Points, but unfortunately, he was not able to exploit this ideal starting position optimally. "Esteban set up well from the outside and Lewis was on the inside. So I was a bit stuck, which was a pity."

In the end Ricciardo finished the Turkish GP at Istanbul Park in tenth place. "We didn't have a constant pace in the race, that was the biggest problem. When my racing engineer told me I was the fastest man on the track, the tires were completely dead two laps later."