Daniel Ricciardo has taken the blame for hitting Valtteri Bottas on the frantic opening lap of the Mexican GP.
Ricciardo collided into Bottas after Turn 1 after trying to make up places from the back. Pole sitter Bottas was the victim of the Australian’s move, and was tagged and sent spinning off the track.
The collision saw both drivers’ races affected. Having started in the points, both the McLaren and the Mercedes driver finished outside them. It was not a good day at the office for the pair, and indeed for their teams.
Ricciardo took the blame for hitting Bottas, and said that his planned move did not work at all.
“There was definitely a lot going on,” Ricciardo told Sky F1, as quoted by Planet F1.
“I still haven’t seen a full replay. The first few hundred metres down to Turn 1, to be honest, they’re always fun here because there are so many slipstreams, it’s dusty, it’s kind of chaos, but there is some form of fun in the chaos.
“But then, under braking, I remember, I think there was room on the inside with (Sergio) Perez, so there was a gap. And it’s one of those ones where, if you don’t go for a gap, someone else will, and you can easily just get swallowed up.
“I locked a little bit and, at that moment, obviously Valtteri has come across, so a combination of that and I guess him, and obviously we hit.”
Sorry, Bottas
The Honey Badger put up his hands and admitted he was at fault, He added that because of his actions, his race was also compromised.
“I apologise to him, again without really seeing it, but I’m the one that went into him,” he continued.
“So of course, at the very least I’ll say sorry for now, and see if there’s much I could’ve done or if it’s just simply a Turn 1 incident and a bottleneck kind of thing.
“Regardless of that, it was looking good for a few hundred metres, and it turned around pretty quickly. So that was the race, and then a long 70 laps after that,” he concluded.
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