Daniel Ricciardo frustrated with Renault's Monaco GP strategy

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo frustrated with Renault's Monaco strategy

Not a great day for last year's winner.

Matthew Scott

Monday 27 May 2019 14:11

Daniel Ricciardo was left frustrated by Renault's decision-making during the Monaco Grand Prix after a decision to pit early robbed him of a stronger points finish in Monte Carlo. The winner of last year's race, Ricciardo was running in fifth when a safety car period prompted a round of pit-stops.

Ricciardo had jumped Kevin Magnussen after starting alongside the Haas man on the third row and was set for a 10-point haul until Charles Leclerc crashed and brought out the Safety Car.

Both Ricciardo and Magnussen pitted immediately, but emerged behind Kimi Raikkonen, who was slow-moving after opting not to take a service.

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As the likes of Carlos Sainz, Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon opened up the time gap to Ricciardo, he dropped down the order once everyone had pitted and took ninth thanks to Romain Grosjean picking up a penalty late in the race.

"In the strategy briefing there was quite a bit of emphasis on me getting Kevin at Turn 1 and quite a bit of pressure in a way but that was our target," Ricciardo said.

"Once we were fifth the top four were out of our reach. I got out of Turn 1 in fifth and I was smiling and the team gave me a bit of love after that.

"Then we got a late call on the Safety Car to box, and to be honest as soon as we came in, my gut feeling was that it wasn't the right call, because the tyres were fine and we had the pace.

"Here it's all about track position and giving up so much so early just felt wrong

"It's so disappointing. We missed a very big opportunity today to get a fifth, at the very worst a sixth. So yeah, sit down with the guys now and understand it, but yeah, certainly frustrated. We could have had a real big result.

"I think we had a pretty good car in the race I had 50 something laps on the mediums and on the very last lap of the race I did my personal best.

"That just jumped me in front of Grosjean because I heard he had a penalty, so I had a few laps at the end to put everything into it and we had that pace to show. We were definitely better than ninth so we'll figure it out and get better."