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Daniel Ricciardo claims that he lost sleep over his exclusion from qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix due to a technical infringement.
Ricciardo was set to start from eighth position until he was disqualified from qualifying due to a spike in power from his MGU-K which Renault claimed yielded a one-microsecond gain.
Adding to the Australian’s frustration was that infringement occurred during Qualifying 1, and not even on his fast lap in that stanza, although there is no scope for discretion regarding such a breach of regulations.
Ricciardo was already convinced pre-race that the decision had ‘ruined’ his weekend, just before he went on to finish 14th in an eventful night at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Speaking afterwards, he said that he had even lost sleep over what he perceived to be the harshness of the penalty.
“Disgracefully,” responded Ricciardo to questions about how he responded to it.
“I had a very restless night (of) sleep trying to go through it in my head, why that penalty would be so harsh.
“For me, it happened on one occurrence on one lap. If it was happening at the same corner every lap throughout the session, I would not complain at all.
“It’s like track limits, you go off and gain and advantage, delete that lap. We didn’t even gain an advantage from this and yet they delete the whole session.
“I was disgraced by that. I voiced my opinion and I will keep voicing it.
“They are doing all the great things by letting us race on track and all that, but then what’s the point of not giving penalties on track but then giving a massive penalty for something that’s out of my control.
“I have some strong words for them, but I’ll leave that. I think you know what I feel. They ruined my weekend.
“(There’s) a lot of anger, and you feel hard done by because I’ve never pissed off anyone there personally. I don’t have a grudge on anyone. I’d think just a bit of common sense would prevail.”
Ricciardo is ninth in the drivers’ championship ahead of the Russian Grand Prix, for which practice starts on Friday at 1800 AEST.
