Daniel Ricciardo has voiced his disappointment over teammate Yuki Tsunoda’s lack of maturity following a tense incident after the Formula One season opener.
Ricciardo ended up in 13th place at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race of the season, while teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished 14th.
However, the post-race discussions centred around Ricciardo due to an outburst from Tsunoda, triggered by a late-race team command to change positions with the Australian.
Having been ahead of Ricciardo for the majority of the race, Tsunoda was displeased with the order to allow Ricciardo, who had recently pitted for new tyres, to pass in an attempt to catch up to Kevin Magnussen in front.
Initially, Tsunoda disregarded the command to let Ricciardo pass. However, upon finally complying, he nearly caused a collision between them after the race had concluded.
As they were returning to the pits, Tsunoda made a risky move to overtake Ricciardo, leading to his car locking up on a turn.
Following this, he made a swift move to pass Ricciardo on the outside, barely avoiding a direct collision with his teammate’s car.
In the aftermath of the race, when probed for his thoughts, Ricciardo maintained composure and avoided igniting any verbal conflict with Tsunoda. However, he did comment on the situation, labelling his teammate’s response as immature.
“I came on the radio and I was trying to stay cool. But I’m being really sensible now, so let’s call it immaturity,” he said to F1 TV.
“He’s obviously frustrated with the team orders call. But let’s be real, this is something that we talk about before the race.
“It was very likely I was going to use the softs (tyres) at the end of the race, so he knew that there was a chance that I’d have a pace advantage at the end.”
When questioned about the incident after the race, Tsunoda was unwilling to delve deep into the matter.
“We were fighting outside of the points anyway, P13-14, and I was just overtaking Magnussen, I was side by side, and then we swapped the cars in the last few laps,” he said.
“To be honest, I can’t understand. We have to review… In the end, (Daniel) didn’t overtake as well so whatever.”
