RB’s hopes of a factors end in Shanghai had been dashed inside a dramatic few moments in Sunday’s race after Ricciardo was hit from behind by Lance Stroll behind the security automobile, whereas Tsunoda was concerned in a race-ending conflict with Kevin Magnussen on the restart.
Neither driver was in a position to end the race, and RB group principal Laurent Mekies felt that each of the incidents in opposition to his drivers may simply have been averted by their rivals, who had been subsequently given penalties for his or her half within the crashes.
Requested by Autosport about whether or not the accidents had been clumsy or a consequence of the frenetic midfield combat, Mekies mentioned: “I do not know actually, however I believe each seemed pointless.
“It isn’t like these the place you see the way it’s at all times going to finish up in a crash. No, each seemed fairly pointless. So I wish to hope that they’re one-offs in an in any other case intense battle.”
Mekies felt the incidents had robbed his squad of one other points-scoring end, particularly as Ricciardo had produced what up till his race exit seemed like being his greatest weekend of the season up to now.
“It is a large alternative misplaced,” added Mekies. “We bought each our vehicles taken out by rivals in a single lap, so clearly it is a large missed alternative.
“We really feel we had been combating for that one level within the group with the standard guys, and it could have been a pleasant and tight battle.
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Group VCARB 01
Photograph by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“Simply earlier than the security automobile, Daniel was successfully attacking Lewis [Hamilton]. So you understand, we had been on a powerful tempo and we had the best tyres. We really feel it may have been a good battle with Nico [Hulkenberg] for that place.
“However it’s what it’s. It is racing. It did not go our approach. However what’s reassuring is A, we had the tempo right here once more to combat for that time, regardless that we began a bit on the again foot on Friday. However actually, the race tempo was there.
“And B, it’s good to see Daniel acting at this stage, he has been making good steps ahead within the background.”
Ricciardo spoke out in opposition to Stroll after the race for the useless approach the Aston Martin driver had run into the again of him, whereas Tsunoda expressed his annoyance on the method through which Magnussen had hit him.
“I believe I’m fairly pissed off how I ended up, particularly as I gave house to him rather a lot and it simply ended up a DNF,” mentioned the Japanese. “So yeah, it is fairly irritating. I’m very aggravated.”
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