Tsunoda apologizes to Ricciardo for car failure

Seatoday.com, Jakarta Tsunoda had started the race on the medium tire in 11th and opted for the conventional two-stop strategy that most of the field deployed. Having battled hard with the Aston Martin pair, he was promoted to P10

“At first, I got a heart attack when the team called me into the box because I thought there was an issue, but they told me we were going for the fastest lap on the soft tire. It was my first experience going for the fastest lap in the final lap of the race, and I really enjoyed it; it was thrilling,” he said afterwards. “We got slightly lucky with Fernando [Alonso] in the end, but we maximized the performance because if we weren’t driving there, we wouldn’t have been able to benefit and score points.”

He was put on a one-stop strategy, but ran out of grip on the hard compound tires and fell back through the field. The team pitted him late on, but there weren’t enough laps left to recover any places—especially since it transpired he was carrying car damage.

“Texas hasn’t been too kind,” Ricciardo said. “At the start, we were doing well with our plan, but the problem was that once the cars with blue flags came up behind us, we lost too much. We seemed to struggle in traffic and then picked up some damage later on, so after that, we lacked pace.

Team Principal Franz Tost explained that the damage was to the front left brake duct, which affected “the aerodynamics heavily, losing a lot of downforce”.

“[Ricciardo] then couldn’t perform well because the car was no longer balanced,” Tost continued. “We called him in for new tires in case of a safety car, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen. I have to apologize to Daniel because of this car failure, which meant he couldn’t show a better performance. I’m convinced in Mexico he will come back, and hopefully, the car will be reliable, allowing him to perform a strong qualifying and good race.”

Article and photo source : formula1.com

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