Daniel Ricciardo was left baffled and enraged after Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, blaming a bad strategy call by his RB team for ruining his race and a chance to score a top-ten finish.
While losing two positions at the start wasn't ideal, Ricciardo felt the real blow came from an early pit stop forced by the team.
This left him stuck in traffic for most of the race, unable to fight for points. In contrast, his teammate Tsunoda, who relied on a different strategy, managed to gain a position over the course of the 70-lap event and finish ninth.
“Why they pitted me when they did at the beginning, we followed the soft [tyre] cars in,” Ricciardo explained, quoted by Speedcafe.
“They've just come in, we have a clear track, and we decided to get behind them and put ourselves in a DRS train! I mean, I've had a lot of races and I've had a lot of frustrating races, but that's up there.
“We had the pace and we basically gave Yuki the race that we had in front of us, and we both could have done that, and we didn't.”
Off the line, from ninth on the grid, Ricciardo on the medium rubber was overhauled by the soft-shod cars of Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
However, he was called in after just seven laps, or a lap after the Williams and Haas drivers had swapped their softs for mediums, and rejoined behind the pair.
Frustrated, Ricciardo felt his team should have stuck to their original plan and extended his first stint on the mediums. Stuck in traffic after his early stop, his race was effectively over.
“It's a late call, box, box, box, and you pit,” Ricciardo explained.
“Honestly, as soon as I'm pulling in the pits I'm questioning it, but you can't [do anything about it]. You get called in Turn 13 and you have to react.
“We talk about strategies and that, but two cars jumped us at the start with a soft tyre. That's fine, let them go,” he added.
“They pit and we follow them to then just be on their strategy. We would have had clear air and a chance to, I think from what I understand, do Yuki's race [had we stayed out].
“Honestly, I was expecting more. On the in-lap I was waiting for ‘Sorry, we fucked up', and I didn't get it. That made me even more angry.”
Ricciardo was further aggravated by his team’s request later in the race to put in an extra effort to fend off the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll.
“Stroll's catching me a second a lap and maybe more, and they're saying it's really important to keep him behind, he recounted.
“What do you want me to do? You've pitted me so early, I'm on older tyres, so I'm also being expected to fight when we're not really in a fight anymore.
“That was also frustrating. It's like there were times where I just felt like the bed was made.”
©RB
Meanwhile, on the other side of the RB garage, Tsunoda, relying on a one-stop strategy, rotated his mediums for a set of hards on lap 29 which carried him to P9 at the checkered flag.
The productive result made up for the Japanese driver’s crash in qualifying the day before that required a big effort from his mechanics.
“It wasn’t easy after such a big crash and we had to change a lot of things, but because of their hard work we were able to score the points today - huge credit to the whole team,” said Tsunoda.
“I’m very relieved I was able to make up for it after yesterday’s crash and particularly happy with my tyre management.
“I think it was a big race for us, especially as we were able to finish ahead of our competitors, and it’s a huge positive for the coming races.”
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