Daniel Ricciardo Breaks Down Japanese Grand Prix Crash

Daniel Ricciardo’s Japanese Grand Prix came to an abrupt halt on the first lap, marking an unexpected early exit for the Australian. The incident, involving a collision with Williams’ Alex Albon, has since been the subject of much discussion. Reflecting on the moments leading up to the crash, Ricciardo shed light on the sequence of decisions and circumstances that precipitated the unfortunate outcome.

Choosing to start on medium tires rather than softs, Ricciardo aimed for a strategic advantage that unfortunately backfired, compromising his start.

“We definitely got gobbled up on that medium,” Ricciardo admitted to media in Japan, as quoted by Autosport, “That was weird because the cars in front of us looked like they got off the line well”.

“It just looks like Yuki and I didn’t have the grip that we anticipated and as soon as we launched I could see Bottas and Hulkenberg just split us and go around. And then into One, I was in the middle with Yuki and an Alpine. And into Turn Two I thought ‘all right, let’s just settle’.

“And as soon as I got on the throttle, I was still struggling so then I think Stroll was on the outside so I was trying to hold him off and then I guess as I started to come back for Three Albon was there.

“I watched his onboard and yeah, I mean I don’t even know if he wanted to be there but his traction was so much better on the soft that he was like, well, there’s space until there wasn’t. I didn’t see him. But honestly, I always assume maybe someone is there at One. I never tried to let’s say use the full width of the track and be completely ignorant. But yeah, I guess there was obviously not enough room.

“All things considered, if we could wind back the clock, I would start on the softs. But for the record, I wanted to be on the medium. That’s not something I fought against but knowing what we know now the softs would have been a lot a lot better for us.”

The ‘Honey Badger’ expected to rise to the challenge when asked by Christian Horner to return to the Red Bull family under the newly rebranded AlphaTauri. And when the news broke of the team taking on a much closer relationship with the Milton Keynes squad, we expected the Visa Cash App RB cars to have a new level of performance as well as a new name. But this hasn’t come to fruition, and Ricciardo is struggling to match his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who was highly celebrated this weekend in his home country.

“I think also yesterday, I was obviously frustrated not to not to make it by half a 10th [into Q3]. But there were some positives, there were some things that we felt like we could probably show today.

“Lap One incidents, they’re the worst because there’s always those questions, ‘Oh, what could have been, maybe we could have done this’. So yeah, shame for not only us as a team, but Alex, and you never want to see someone go out on Lap One.”

With Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko admitting that the driver has a “mental problem,” there were obviously questions of confidence once he returned to the press pen.

“I think today is a singular moment, I guess in terms of… I don’t look at today and think, ‘Oh man this year, like when it rains, it pours or whatever’. I feel it was just one of those things,” Ricciardo admitted.

“We know that 24 races, it’s probably likely that maybe I’m involved in another Lap One incident. It’s just probability in that. So these things kind of happen.

“It obviously sucks when they do but I don’t look at it any more than today being a kind of singular incident. Of course, would have been nice to get a race under our belt and try to show a little bit of something that I felt we were starting to show yesterday.

“But yeah, we’ll do that in China. I actually test on Tuesday. So the laps that I missed today I’ll get back on Tuesday.”

With the stewards accepting this as a racing incident, there will be no further action.