F1 rivals give verdict on 'tricky' Japanese GP crash

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

Japanese Grand Prix

F1 rivals give verdict on 'tricky' Japanese GP crash

The pair collided in Japan

Originally written by Sam Cook. This version is a translation.

Sunday 7 April 2024 23:30

Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon have delivered their verdicts following a heavy lap one crash at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The incident resulted in a 30-minute red flag to repair the barriers which were scattered across the gravel.

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An 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 despite the brilliant performances of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, 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

How did Daniel Ricciardo react to the crash?

“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.”

What did Alex Albon have to say?

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.

Daniel Ricciardo's car wedged in the turn three barriers

“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.”

Mercedes Daniel Ricciardo Yuki Tsunoda Williams Alex Albon Japanese Grand Prix