Daniel Ricciardo’s run of consecutive race finishes came to an end in the Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The Australian was a mid-race retirement when he stopped his McLaren after it suffered a drop in power.
It ended a 32-race streak of finishes, a run which stretched back to the opening race of the 2020 season.
Ricciardo had been running inside the top 10, having made progress early after starting 11th, before striking trouble.
“Started to lose some power a few laps before we retired the car,” Ricciardo told reporters shortly after stepping out of the MCL35M.
“We tried to make a few switch changes to see if we can recover it, but it needed to be put back in the garage to see if it can be recovered.
“On track, we didn’t have a fix for it. In that way it was getting worse and worse, so we had to bring it back in.
“That’s obviously disappointing, but these things happen.”
Speaking after the race, team principal Andreas Seidl shed more light on the reason for the retirement.
“We had a power loss on track,” he confirmed.
“In the initial investigation we found a technical issue, a crack, chassis side of the power unit installation, which we need to now investigate further.”
Ricciardo’s Sunday performance was an improvement on that from Sprint Qualifying, in which he fell from eighth to 11th after being crowded out at the start.
“The race was going a lot better than yesterday,” the Australian said.
“I think we made some improvements, had some good battles, so for the most part it was positive.
“It was looking like a better day and could have got spicy at the end, because the cars that decided to two-stop, maybe we could have tried to push a one-stop and get in the way of them.”
With Ricciardo failing to see the flag and team-mate Lando Norris only 10th, McLaren bagged just a single point for its efforts in Brazil.
Meanwhile Ferrari, with whom McLaren is battling for third place in the constructors’ championship, netted 19 to extend its points advantage to 31.5 with three races remaining.
Discussion about this post