F1 | Racing Bulls, Ricciardo accuses Stroll: “he didn't even see me!”

Shanghai – What a disaster for the Racing Bulls! The team of Faenza say hello to China with a double retreat. Everything happens when the Safety Car returns, halfway through the race. The race leader Verstappen hit the accelerator at the penultimate corner, and that's where everything happens: Yuki tsunoda e Kevin Magnussen they touch, and the Japanese suffers a puncture. His VCARB01 ends up spinning and Tsunoda is thus forced to retire. Even more striking, however, is the accident of Daniel Ricciardo: The Australian seemed to be in a whole new dimension this weekend, thanks to the new chassis. When the SC returned, Daniel was in eleventh position when, in turn 14, Lance stroll he accelerated as if the Racing Bulls weren't there at all, ending up in the car's exhaust, lifting it. Diffuser completely damaged for Daniel and race completely destroyed: after a few laps Ricciardo surrenders to reality and takes the car back to the pits. But it's not over: during the Safety Car regime the Australian overtook Nico Hulkenberg without returning the position. For this, Ricciardo will have to serve a three-place grid penalty Miami.

Ricciardo: “He didn't even see me, that's the biggest problem”

“We had made up a lot of ground in the stint before the Safety Car intervened, but just before the restart I took a big hit and the car was damaged. We decided to retire because it no longer felt like we were driving an F1 car. It's very frustrating. I looked at his onboard: at the restart you can't predict what the one in front will do, you have to be more cautious than ever; he blew at me with a much greater speed, and it seemed like he wasn't even looking at me, from the position of his helmet it almost seemed like he was looking at the apex of the curve. This is the biggest problem. We will never know what could have happened during the race, but I think we were in a good position at that time. Having someone else ruin your race is frustrating and that's where the disappointment comes from, because today we had an opportunity and we missed it. I think we are all very disappointed. When I returned to the garage, I saw the mechanics looking at the damage and they were as heartbroken as I was. Pace-wise, I think it was the best weekend so far and we could feel some momentum, a sort of turning point in the season. We will go to Miami and try to continue working on this aspect."

Tsunoda: “The team did everything to help me”

“It's frustrating the way it ended today. I was satisfied with how I was going in the race until that contact with Magnussen. After the Safety Car, I got off to a good start and gained five positions, so I think I did my best, but my pace didn't improve as we would have liked. We were sliding more than the others and the team did everything they could to help me solve the problem but, overall, we weren't able to show our true performance this week, which is a shame. We will analyze the reasons when we return to Faenza and I know that we will come back stronger in Miami. It's a shame that Daniel also had to retire, because he had good pace in this race: it's frustrating for the team not to bring either car to the finish line and not be able to score points."