Daniel Ricciardo now explains ‘I’m sorry’ message to AlphaTauri at US GP

Follow us on Google Discover

Daniel Ricciardo has now explained why the Australian apologised to AlphaTauri after his ‘pretty miserable’ return to the Formula 1 grid at the United States GP last Sunday.

The 34-year-old retook his drive for AlphaTauri from Liam Lawson in Austin after missing the previous five races. Ricciardo fractured his hand during FP2 at the Dutch GP back in August which demanded surgery. Lawson stood in and delivered as the Italian team’s reserve driver.

Ricciardo had only driven two Grand Prix this season before pulling out of the Dutch GP. The Perth native replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri ahead of the Hungarian and Belgian Grand Prix. But damage to a brake duct denied him a fruitful Grand Prix return in the United States.

Ricciardo now opens up on his ‘I’m sorry’ message to AlphaTauri at the United States GP

The Sprint format stopped Ricciardo from bedding himself back in at AlphaTauri across three practice sessions. Instead, he had the 14th fastest time in practice and qualified 15th for the Grand Prix, plus 11th for the Sprint. The eight-time GP winner also finished the Sprint in P12.

P15 and last amongst the classified finishers was also all that Ricciardo could manage during the United States GP. He had run as high as P12 at the halfway stage of the race. But a piece of debris damaged one of the brake ducts on Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri and thwarted his US GP.

“Unfortunately, we picked up some damage,” Ricciardo noted, via quotes by F1i.com. “I told the team that, ‘I’m sorry, guys, I got nothing right now. I really can’t do anything’.

“That made our race a pretty miserable one. At best, we’re a top-10 car and when you put damage into it, we are certainly out of the points. Definitely most of our day today was misfortune, let’s say.”

Ricciardo admits his ‘hand is no excuse’ for failing to deliver a result at COTA

Formula 1 now heads for the Mexico City GP this Sunday and Ricciardo will hope to deliver a better result for AlphaTauri. He will also head to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez happy that his hand was ‘no excuse’ for struggling at the Circuit of the Americas on his race return.

“I actually felt probably worse [in terms of my fitness after the Sprint],” Ricciardo noted. “So, maybe that was just a good little warm-up for me. There’s positives.

“The hand is no excuse, I think that was good. We did well with the timing of the return to have no hesitations or excuses. Physically, it’s definitely a tougher race. I still felt ok.”

Ricciardo will hope that now having the United States GP under his belt means he avoids all fitness concerns in Mexico. The Australian has performed well at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the past. He started the 2018 Mexican GP from pole position whilst at Red Bull.

He was also the best of the rest in the 2016 Mexican GP behind Mercedes’ run-away drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. A hydraulics failure meant Ricciardo retired from the 2018 race. He also qualified in P7 at the 2021 Mexico City GP and finished P7 in 2022 for McLaren.