27/08/2023
NEWS STORY
Oscar Piastri has admitted to being "thankful" that countryman Daniel Ricciardo opted to put his car into the wall on Friday rather than T-boning his stricken McLaren.
Speaking in the wake of Friday's crash, which left Ricciardo with a broken hand, thereby ruling him out of the Dutch, and possibly, Italian races, the AlphaTauri driver admitted that as he headed towards Turn 3, where Piastri had gone off into the barrier, he had a clear choice...
"I remember coming into Turn 3," he said. "I had already gotten into the corner and then saw Piastri, so it was either hit him or the wall.
"When I hit the wall, I didn't have enough time to take my hands off the steering wheel," he added, "so the wheel came and hit my hand."
Speaking about the incident on Saturday, Piastri said: "The way you have to attack the banking, it's not the smoothest transition in the world.
"With a kind of strange behaviour on the tyres and the car, it sort of reacts a little bit differently sometimes to what you would normally expect," he continued. "Obviously the wall is a metre to the right so if you get it wrong, as I proved, it ends badly.
"So it's a tricky corner... definitely. You've kind of got to hope the grip is there when you get into the banking. I think I was maybe a bit ambitious, but it's definitely a tricky one."
Revealing that he has sent Ricciardo a "get well soon" message, the McLaren driver said: "Obviously, I hope he has a speedy recovery. It's never nice to see somebody get hurt.
"I know he had the choice of hitting me or the wall," he admitted, "so I'm thankful he chose the wall. I just hope he recovers quickly, and we see him back on the grid."
AlphaTauri team boss, Franz Tost has revealed that Ricciardo may require surgery on his hand.
"We will see what is going to happen for Monza, but maybe he has to have surgery," the Austrian told Viaplay. "The doctors will decide in the next few days.
"Recovery for a normal person is up to six weeks," he explained, "but he is a Formula 1 driver, and I hope this process will be shortened because we would like to have him in the car.
"Nevertheless, it has happened. It was a strange accident because he couldn't do anything. Piastri was in front, went into the tyre wall and Daniel was just behind him. He couldn't react and crashed.
"I told him that we are sorry from the team side and that he did a fantastic job, he could have been in the top 10."
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