Daniel Ricciardo stated that he doesn’t see the lap one crash with Alexander Albon as a sign that underlines his difficult start to the 2024 season, it was just a “singular moment” that can happen to anyone in Formula 1.
The Aussie crashed out of the Japanese GP on the first lap after making contact with Albon right after the first two corners. Ricciardo took a wider line into turn 3 and didn’t see the Williams approaching. The Thai driver touched the rear right of the Australian and the two finished into the wall.
Ricciardo has been struggling so far, especially considering Yuki Tsunoda’s form. The latter scored another point in Suzuka for the team. However, the Australian feels that the crash on lap one is something that could’ve happened to anyone.
“Today is [a] singular moment. I don’t look at today and think ‘oh, man this year,’ like… ‘when it rains, it pours,’ or whatever. I feel it was just one of those things,” Ricciardo said.
“We know [across] that 24 races, it’s likely that maybe I’m involved in another lap one incident, there’s just probability [that] these things kind of happen. It obviously sucks when they do. But I don’t look at it any more than today being a kind of singular incident.”
The RB F1 Team driver added that he would’ve liked to complete the race to show that he and the team have made some progress. He tries to look at the bright side as he will drive in a test on Tuesday, so he’ll get back the kilometers he missed today.
“Of course, [it] would have been nice to get a race under our belt and try to show a little bit of something that I felt we were starting to show yesterday. We’ll do that in China. I’m actually testing on Tuesday. So the laps that I missed today – I’ll get back on Tuesday.”
Ricciardo then explained how a difficult start on medium tires led to the crash with Albon at turn 3. He lacked grip up until that moment, and as he was trying to defend from Lance Stroll, he couldn’t see the Williams on his right.
“We definitely got gobbled up on that medium. It was weird because the cars in front of us look like they got off the line well, so it just looked like Yuki and I didn’t have the grip that we anticipated,” he explained.
“As soon as we launched, I could see Bottas and Hulkenberg just split us and go around. And then into [Turn] 1, I was in the middle, with Yuki and an Alpine, so then by Turn 2 I thought ‘alright, let’s just settle’ – and as soon as I got on the throttle, I was still struggling, then I think Stroll was on my outside. I was trying to hold him off.
“As I’ve started to come back for [Turn] 3, then Albon’s there. I watched his onboard [camera]. 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.
“I didn’t see him. 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 there was obviously not enough room.”
To conclude, he explained that he wanted to start on the mediums, but considering the outcome of lap one, he would’ve decided to fit the soft tires instead.
“All things considered, if we could wind back the clock an hour, I would start on the soft. But for the record, I wanted to be on the medium. And that’s not something I fought against. But knowing what we know now, the soft would have been a lot better for us.”