Yuki Tsunoda expected better from ‘experienced’ Daniel Ricciardo in Mexico

Punted out of the Mexico City GP by Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda said a driver with so much experience should not have tried the impossible.

With the soft tyres bolted on for his final stint, Ricciardo was flying along in the McLaren at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, though he did not help his cause when he encountered the AlphaTauri of Tsunoda.

Looking for a way past the Japanese racer, Ricciardo kept his nose in down the inside of Turn 6, a door that duly closed as Tsunoda turned in on the Aussie, his AlphaTauri jolted up into the air as a result of the contact.

Tsunoda返回跟踪和pits, though with significant damage to the right sidepod, AlphaTauri decided that was the end of his race.

Ricciardo was hit with a 10-second time penalty for causing that collision, though still finished P7, ‘best of the rest’ behind the Red Bulls, Mercedes andFerraris. He even won the fan-voted Driver of the Day award.

Ricciardo said that having watched the footage back, heno longer feels as bad about what happened as he did, arguing that he was not 100% to blame.

It is safe to say that Tsunoda does not see it that way, the AlphaTauri driver critical of Ricciardo’s impossible overtake attempt, one which he feels a driver of his extensive experience should know not to attempt.

LAP 51/71

Contact between Ricciardo and Tsunoda

The AlphaTauri car has damage. Tsunoda returns to the pits and is out of the race ❌#MexicoGP#F1pic.twitter.com/Y4x8NxOruP

— Formula 1 (@F1)October 30, 2022

“It’s such a shame about today’s result,” said Tsunoda. “My tyre management had been really good in the race up until that point, and I was feeling confident in that final stint, so I’m very disappointed that it ended with such a silly mistake.

“Daniel was on a different strategy and would’ve easily made it past later on, so for such an experienced driver to try to overtake in an area that it’s just not possible to is so annoying.

“We were close to being able to finish in the points, which are so valuable to us right now. There are some positives to take away from this weekend, but for now I just need to go away and reset, then come back stronger for Brazil.”

Sadly there were no points to be taken away from this weekend for AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly just missing out on P10 to Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.

AlphaTauri remain P9 in theConstructors’ Championshipthen, a point behind Haas.

“It’s a real shame, but we knew it would be difficult starting from P14,” said Gasly.

“I gave everything I could today, and we were close to finishing in the top 10, if we’d had one more lap, I think we could’ve been in it.”

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