Daniel Ricciardo rued his failure to get past Kevin Magnussen in what was a painful afternoon for the Australian driver at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The 2014 winner of the event could only manage a fourteenth place finish after starting last.
After a dismal qualifying which saw him stranded in eighteenth after having his final flying lap ruined by Racing Point F1 Team‘s Sergio Pérez as the two battled for track position, his Renault F1 Team opted for a complete engine change. This meant Ricciardo was forced to the back of the grid thanks to grid penalties, which came as a result of him exceeding his quota for power unit components for the season.
Having started on the hard Pirelli compound, the delay in making his first and only pit stop enabled the Australian to run briefly inside the points whilst some drivers headed for the pits, but in the second half of the race, Ricciardo was held up by Magnussen as the pair squabbled for fourteenth on track.
The way Magnussen defended infuriated Ricciardo, which caused the Australian to launch a tirade on the team radio after feeling he was blocked numerous times by the Dane moving under braking as the two fought heading into turn one.
”It was frustrating not to get past Magnussen,” said the Australian. “I felt he was moving under braking, and I couldn’t do anything.
“I wasn’t happy about that as we could have progressed even further at the end”
Ricciardo goes into the summer break eleventh in the driver’s standings, the lowest the Australian has been since his 2013 campaign, but the Australian remains positive after a testing first half of the season for him and Renault, which has often seen both driver and team fighting for scraps at the bottom of the top 10.
”There are some positives and the summer break will be good for us,” said Ricciardo. “We’ll reset, take some time off, we know we’re in it together and we’ll be targeting a better second-half of the season.”
