Daniel Ricciardo bemoaned a damaged floor on his Renault F1 Team car at the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix, courtesy of contact in a first-lap melee which set the tone in what was a tough afternoon for the Australian driver who could only manage fourteenth at the chequered flag.
After a penalty demoted him from sixth to tenth on the grid, Ricciardo was caught up in the first lap chaos as the field attempted to avoid debris laid down courtesy of Kimi Räikkönen’s coming together with Max Verstappen.
With the safety car out, Ricciardo was brought into the pits, which was initially thought to retire the car, but Renault brought him in for tyres much to the surprise of Ricciardo.
“We had to pit, I actually thought we might retire the car – but we put the Mediums on and the car was a bit of a handful”. said Ricciardo.
However with his damaged Renault and rapidly weakening tyres, Ricciardo was a sitting duck as cars passed him left right and centre, with the Australian being passed around the outside for Red Bull Racing debutant Alexander Albon into turn 11.
Ricciardo eventually finished fourteenth and a lap down after a tough weekend which sees him fall to twelfth in the driver’s championship.
“Our race was pretty much shaped after the lap one, turn one incident. I got hit from behind and had big damage to the floor, we kept going, held our place in the top ten, and I thought at one stage we might pick up some points.
“I was proud to hold on for that long and I know we couldn’t have done
