09/06/2016
NEWS STORY
His infectious grin a distant memory, it was clear that in the hours that followed his miserable Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo was in no mood to sit down and talk with his team.
Instead, the likeable Australian maintained radio silence for a couple of days, before the inevitable post-mortem.
Now, ahead of a race he (or teammate Max Verstappen) is well placed to win, beating the all-conquering Mercedes duo, he insists lessons have been learned.
"I was happy to keep some distance for a few days," he told reporters in Montreal, "and for myself as well, it wasn't probably healthy to address it straight away.
"For a few days I was upset, I guess, and obviously ruing some missed opportunities. But it’s one of those things, it happens, it is unfortunate it happened back to back," he added, referring to the team's tyre strategy error in Spain. "That expanded the feelings and emotion a lot more, but I have moved on. I still have a lot of faith in the team, and I don’t doubt things with them moving forward.
"For me it is really important to execute a perfect weekend," he continued, "we have a good car and good material. It is trying to maximise it, the last few weekends I felt I should have got more, we want to leave Sunday knowing we have maximised everything from both sides."
The Australian revealed that the first contact came over the phone - though not in the Daniil Kvyat sense - with calls from Christian Horner and then engineer Simon Rennie.
"I'd let it cool a couple of days, then Christian apologised on everyone's behalf he explained what went down and why there was confusion and why the tyres weren't ready, so that was really the phone call. Then I spoke to my engineer Simon later in the week after they had chance to spend days in factory to hear what they put in place.
"I questioned the second pit, where we effectively lost the race, I also questioned the first pit stop as well," he revealed. "I thought we put ourselves in a race with Lewis that we didn't need to be in, so I questioned it.
"He said they weren't looking into but acknowledged that was also a mistake. There will be some new software for strategy and live stuff during the race that can make us more prepared and if there are late calls again ensure everything is put in place. I had some questions to ask and they answered them with some confidence and I heard what I needed to hear."
Looking ahead to this weekend, he said: "In my mind, it would be a lovely way to bounce back. Realistically, Mercedes are still going to be the ones to beat. I hope we can be the next best. I do believe we will be the next ones in line behind Mercedes, how far behind I am not sure."
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