Daniel Ricciardo expressed profound frustration with Lance Stroll following their collision during a safety car restart in the Chinese Grand Prix. Ricciardo emphasized the importance of Stroll taking accountability for the incident that unfolded on the track.
The incident occurred during the first safety car restart when Stroll’s car collided with the rear of Ricciardo’s vehicle as the cars approached Turn 14. This collision resulted in significant damage to Ricciardo’s car, forcing him to retire from the race.
Unfortunately, this retirement meant that Ricciardo had to join his teammate Yuki Tsunoda on the sidelines, who was already out of the race due to a separate incident involving Kevin Magnussen.
In the aftermath of the collision, Ricciardo criticized Stroll for deflecting blame despite being penalized with a 10-second time penalty. Stroll, who eventually finished 15th in the race, also received two penalty points on his super license, bringing his total to seven within the past year.
Ricciardo urged Stroll to acknowledge his role in the incident and to take responsibility for it moving forward. He emphasized the importance of learning from such collisions and expressed concern that if Stroll continued to blame others for his mistakes, it would pose a greater problem.
Ricciardo’s sentiment was encapsulated in his statement, “For me, the biggest thing is if they’re like ‘oh, we’ll give him a five-place penalty the next race’, but he still is then blaming me, that’s a bigger problem.
“I want him to understand once the dust settles, if he’s still hot-headed today, he needs to learn from this. We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve done it, we all have. As long as he understands that he was the one that’s ruined not only his race but mine, that’s the biggest thing we can take away.”
