Daniel Ricciardo admits that the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix ‘got away’ from him and his Renault crew before he effectively finished it off with a spin.
The Australian trundled home in 14th in the second Silverstone race of the 2020 Formula 1 season after a promising third in Friday practice showing and a fifth in qualifying.
Ricciardo looped his R.S.20 along the way at Village, on Lap 31, as Carlos Sainz went for a move around the outside.
By then, however, his prospects of a solid result were already slipping away having pitted a first time on Lap 14 for another set of medium compound tyres and given those up for hards just 12 laps later.
The 31-year-old would have to finish the race on used medium tyres after wrecking the white-banded hoops with the rotation.
“I think it was a race which just kept getting away from us,” said Ricciardo, who ran sixth before the pit stops started and was ninth at the time of his spin.
“Really, as soon as we stopped for the first time… Yeah, it’s a tough.
“We’ll look but I think, in hindsight, we could have gone longer and tried to just put the hard on.
“But, we came in for the medium and then that medium just got destroyed, we couldn’t do many laps with it at all, so that was certainly unexpected.
“Then (we) pitted for the hard but we came out in a group obviously because the medium stint wasn’t good, so then we were in the fight and tried to defend from Carlos and I lost the car.
“So, I spun, killed those tyres, so then the spin put us really out of the race and then I killed those tyres because of the spin, so our race was done, so (it) just got away from us.”
Ironically, Esteban Ocon finished eighth from 14th on the starting grid after he went with a one-stop medium-to-hard strategy in the other Renault.
The Frenchman made his only visit to pit lane just prior to Ricciardo’s second on Lap 23, and was even in the same battle pack when the Australian went around.
For Ricciardo, the result was a clear anticlimax to what had been a strong weekend until unravelling on Sunday.
While admitting his car was not as competitive as it had been in practice and qualifying, the one-time Silverstone podium finisher believed that it was still worthy of a top 10 finish.
“It’s a shame,” said Ricciardo.
“I’m not convinced the car was as good as we expected, regardless, so I don’t think it could have been a podium car today but for sure there were still some points which were available.
“We’ll try (to) figure out what we can do better. Obviously, I can not spin, but I think to not put us in that mess… We’ll see.”
Ricciardo and Ocon hold ninth and 10th in the drivers’ championship on 20 and 16 points respectively while the Renault F1 Team is sixth in the constructors’ standings.
The Anglo-French outfit had moved ahead of Racing Point after the penalty handed down in the brake ducts dispute, before Lance Stroll took sixth and Nico Hulkenberg seventh in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
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