Daniel Ricciardo is not impressed after executing his team strategy at the Dutch GP.
McLaren had a terrible weekend at Zandvoort, scoring only one point on race day. They took a gamble to try and get Ricciardo and Lando Norris into the top 10, the former who was already in P10. However, it backfired, and Norris finished 10th, while Ricciardo bottomed out to P11.
The Australian revealed that the team’s strategy, which was him backing other drivers up so Norris could move up. But it cost him his points, and he was not impressed after executing the team strategy.
“We tried to execute a team strategy to maximise points, which cost me some race time,” Ricciardo said, as reported by Fox Sports Australia.
“It was hard to get going after that and I think ultimately the pace wasn’t that good. We did struggle a bit, for different reasons, in the first and second stint.
“We were P10 at one point today, but it was hard to see how we could’ve been much higher than that. I’d have obviously loved to score points, but we’ll analyse it and learn from it.”
More problems
Ricciardo also said there were other issues with his car, including a problem with his clutch. It wasn’t working, so he had to use his other hand to start the race.
“I did the start with my other hand and that was a big part of losing a position to (George) Russell off the line,” Ricciardo said.
“But we recovered well and I got back past Russell and (Antonio) Giovinazzi. We actually gained a position on Lap 1, when I thought we were going to lose a few, so that was great.
“We were then just stuck behind the Alpines. They were saving the tyres and I was just trying to stay with them. Once they opened it up, I didn’t have their pace,” he concluded.
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