06/11/2023
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo admits to being "thankful" that he wasn't hit by Alex Albon's errant tyre following the Williams driver's first corner collision with Kevin Magnussen.
Ironically, the AlphaTauri driver was one of two Australians who were innocent victims of the clash which saw Albon and Magnussen eliminated in another case of three into one won't go.
As the Williams driver fought with the two Haas' on the run to Turn 1, Albon's left-rear touched Hulkenberg's right-front, causing the Thai driver to spin and in the process hit the right-hand sidepod on the Dane's car.
While the Williams then hit the barrier on the pit straight, Magnussen went off into the run-off. However, in the midst of the ensuing mayhem, Piastri was clouted from behind, thereby breaking his rear wing and causing damage to his floor, while the tyre carcass from Albon's left-rear was sent high into the air eventually hitting the rear wing on Ricciardo's AlphaTauri.
With the race subsequently red-flagged, both Australian were able to have their cars repaired though this meant restarting the race from the pitlane a lap down on the rest of the field.
Speaking after an afternoon of staring at blue flags, Ricciardo admitted to just being thankful that the first corner incident hadn't been any worse.
"I saw quite a big crash in front of me, lots of debris, and I felt like I was getting through it," said the Australian. "Then I saw a tyre off the rim, kind of like Frisbeeing through the air and it started getting closer.
"I remember ducking my head," he continued. "I didn't feel anything hit me, so I was happy, but then I checked my mirrors and I saw the rear wing was pretty much off, so I assumed the tyre had hit the wing, which was obviously frustrating.
"You look back at those things now, and it's nice it didn't hit me," he admitted. "It's funny, but as soon as I realised it didn't hit me, I looked at the wing, and I was like, ‘Damn it!' So my immediate relief was turned into disappointment because I realised the race could be over.
"When you're in that race mode you don't even think about it, but now, with hindsight, I'm thankful we all got out of it safe. All these things can always be worse. I'll leave certainly feeling a little bit thankful for that. I just wish they could have let us be in the race so that one hurts a bit."
"I hit the brakes for Turn 1, looked in the mirror, and saw someone's tyre flying through the air and I thought that didn't look very good," said Piastri. "Sure enough, I got an impact after that. It's a shame. Of course, there was nothing I could have done. But when you qualify in those kinds of positions, you leave yourself much more at risk to stuff like that. It all starts on Friday, unfortunately.
"After that, I tried to stay on the lead lap and learn as much as I could because it's not been the easiest of weekends," he admitted. "But thanks to the amazing efforts from everyone to get the car back together in twenty minutes, which was no mean feat, I got an extra 70 laps that I otherwise wouldn't have. So I learned a lot, just in general, but also for when I come back next year.
"After yesterday there were some things I wanted to try and improve," he continued, referring to Saturday's Sprint, "and I experimented with that a lot. Some things were successful, some not.
"It's very rare you get an opportunity to try things like that. Of course, I would have preferred the opportunity hadn't come up in the first place, but when it's there, you've got to try and capitalise on it what with the lack of testing we have."
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