F1 News: Daniel Ricciardo shifts BLAME as drivers give verdict on huge smash

Daniel Ricciardo, VCARB, Visa, RB, Japan, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

Japanese Grand Prix

Ricciardo shifts BLAME as F1 rivals give verdict on huge smash

The Australian collided with Alex Albon in Japan

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Sunday 7 April 2024 12:57

Visa Cash App RB star Daniel Ricciardo and Williams' Alex Albon have been giving their verdicts on a huge crash that saw them both having to retire from the Japanese Grand Prix.

The lap one incident, which resulted in a red flag and a 30-minute delay as officials raced to fix the tyre barriers at Suzuka, occurred as the pair headed into turn two, with Ricciardo getting bogged down following a poor start.

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Under-pressure Ricciardo tagged Albon as the Thai driver was attempting to get alongside him, causing the pair to go spinning off onto the grass and slam into the barriers.

For Ricciardo, it continues his poor start to the season where he is still yet to score a point, while the collision may be particularly harmful to Williams, who have already been suffering with a lack of parts.

It was a hefty shunt for Daniel Ricciardo

Alex Albon is worried about Williams' season

Ricciardo and Albon discuss crash

Now, the pair have had their say on what was deemed to be a racing incident, although one that was noted by race stewards.

Ricciardo believes that it was the differing strategies of the two drivers that may have been the cause of the collision.

“I watched his on-board,” Ricciardo recounted to Sky Sports after the race.

“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.

“So I didn’t see him but honestly, I always assume maybe someone is there. It’s lap one, so I never tried to 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 an hour, I would start on the soft,” he added.

“But for the record, I wanted to be on the medium [tyre]. That’s not something I fought against. But knowing what we know, now the soft would have been a lot better for us.”

Albon was equally as sporting about the incident, despite clearly being worried about how his team may cope with yet more damage to one of their chassis.

“Kind of surprised the grip I had out of [turn] two, and was able to crawl underneath him,” Albon recounted.

“Obviously just one of them things; he didn’t see me, clearly. I tried to back out of it last minute.

“There was a moment where I realised he hasn’t seen me here and the way he’s pulling across...It’s tricky.

“I hit the brakes and tried to get out of it but we’re almost too far alongside him that, as I backed out of it, but he was still coming across, and I couldn’t avoid this.

“It’s not what we want,” he added. “It’s no secret that we are having a tough time with it at the moment with the parts we got. This is going to hurt us for sure.

“The impact itself was relatively low-speed,” he explained.

“But the way I hit the tyre wall, normally we have these kind of plastic barriers… But this was much more dug in and it really stops very violently.

“They’re the questions I’m worried about – not for me, for the car, because that’s where you can do damage.”

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Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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F1 Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo Alex Albon Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka