Ricciardo’s fury and what we learned from F1's Chinese GP

no surprise winner from f1's Return to China but still an intriguing race that taught us some very important lessons about F1 2024 we've got Scott here to help unpick all of that and we've got to start Scott with the Race's major flash point Daniel Ricardo absolutely furious with Lance stroll uncharacteristically angry in fact apart from having his race ruined what's got the honey badger so riled up yeah he uh he needed no prodding really to uh unleash exactly what he thought of stroll not just the incident itself it's the the way stroll reacted to it we we heard on the the broadcast and it came up with a graphic on screen that stroll said um the this idiot just just break jumped on the brakes in in front of me or words to to that effect and Ricardo took massive exception to that I I've I've listened to that stroll radio message a dozen times not just on the broadcast but just in isolation on his onboard and I I would say that you can't rule out him saying these idiots rather than rather than Ricardo specifically this idiot but Ricardo had C Ricardo clearly been told that stroll had called him called him an idiot and even if stroll was saying that about all of them Ricardo is still in that group so I don't think we can let stroll off the hook too much for for that remark and Ricardo said this made his blood boil because in his view it's clear as day stroll is not paying attention and has rear ended him completely carelessly for so it's an absolutely avoidable incident and strolls refusing to take any responsibility for it and that as much as anything else is what really really incensed Ricardo and Aston seemed to have doubled down on this afterwards as well so even if stroll was making those remarks In the Heat of the Moment to try and protect himself he's not exactly held his hands up afterwards Aston indicating the stewards maybe should have waited before penalizing him blaming the concertina effects so those other cars you mentioned checking the field up and basically saying there was nothing Stoll could do do you by that explanation to me it seemed like a case of you know when you're behind the safety car you've got to pay attention to the Constantino effect he could have maybe dived to the inside if he thought he was going to rear end somebody but he just kind of careers into the RB and lifts it up is it a case of him just not paying attention yeah so there was initially when we first saw it I I Had A Bit of Sympathy for Stoll and and I thought he just had it when you have that concertina effect it always gets worse when you're when you're further back in the train of cars so I did wonder if that's what had happened but I reviewed it extensively afterward I looked at his onboard but I looked at the onboard of every single car in that train going to Alonzo then George Russell then Oscar pastri then Ricardo and then stroll himself and it's really clear everyone else manages to slow down they're paying attention to what the car's doing stroll hits Ricardo so hard and you can see his helmet does look to the right as he's approaching Ricardo so I think Ricardo spot on I think I think Ricardo's spot on and all strolls doing is looking at the Apex he's looking through the corner he's expecting that corner to go even behind the safety car as they're about or you know not behind the safety car but as they're about to restart after the safety car he's expecting that to go as quote unquote normal but it doesn't so strolls right in that without that concertino without the backing up the actions of the car in front there won't be an accident he he is right but he's relying on it going as normal rather than being prepared to react and from what Ricardo was saying I completely agree and the steward's verdict as well they make it really clear that straw effectively wasn't paying attention if he'd if he'd been prepared to to slow down if he'd anticipated something happening the way he should have done that incident was avoidable well it won't have helped Ricardo's mood that post race he's been penalized for overtaking Nico hulkenberg under the safety car obviously stroll was penalized for his incident under the safety car Aston don't agree with that what lessons can he learn from that though do you think stroll will quietly at least reflect on this and change his approach for the future certainly that's what Ricardo is pushing for or do you think Aston with this whole sense that the stewards are against them obviously Alonzo's had two penalties in the past few races as well it's it's a case of US versus the world yeah I'm not really sure there's going to be much of a lesson here Ricardo's point is that stroll needs to go away and learn from this because everyone's made that mistake and it's just about making sure it doesn't happen again I don't get the impression from what stroll is saying and what ason have said that they actually think he did anything wrong which I I think quite quite concerning and it perhaps shows a bit of a limitation on strolls side and inability to sort of reflect and be able to to say yeah okay hold my hands up I I was wrong there I think um Ricardo's got his own lesson to learn from here as you mentioned the his own safety card infringement he overtook niik hulkenberg I think he was repassing hulkenberg because he thought that hulkenberg had wrongly overtaken him behind the safety car previously so now the the yeah the irony is is that Ricardo now gets a three place grid penalty for the next race because obviously he'd retired from the Grand Prix so they they can't penalize him after the fact stroll got his 10-sec penalty in the race while he was still active kind of a no meaningful consequence for stroll and a Ricardo for a separate incident is the one that actually ends the race with the bigger punishment well moving on to further up the grids obviously no surprise winner from this race Max foren won at a caner but a surprise in terms of who finished second Landon noris a great performance McLaren suddenly on form more more like the end of 2023 McLaren that we got used to seeing that we haven't really seen so far in 2024 so where did that come from Scott well i' I'd love to give a really specific answer but then I'd know more than McLaren does because McLaren and Lando Norris don't really understand why they were so competitive this weekend there are there are a couple of theories so Mclaren has been sort of second or third fastest overlap so far in 2024 depending on the circuit of course sometimes it's been a bit bit worse than that but the Pace has been there over one lap but they they don't have they haven't had the race pace of the the the Ferrari I feel like they've just done a better job of executing on on Saturday so that is I think the third fastest car in in Formula 1 so this wasn't you know miles better than we've seen before but the race Pace was really strong that was the the surprising Factor they didn't seem to be chewing through the tire at the rate of other races while running up the pace needed to be in front of say the the Ferraris or in this case for Norris Sergio Perez in in the other Red Bull and yeah two a couple of theories of about that wouldn't want to say this is definitively the reason why but I think one of them is the fact that unexpectedly this weekend the the track which is normally front limited was more rear limited everybody was struggling with overloading the the rear axle tie attemps were through the roof at times for different cars through that gromy and I wonder if that helped McLaren in a way because there wasn't that front end limitation and we know that they really struggle with slow speed in particular so maybe just the rotation was coming a little bit better than they thought and others were limited more in a way that they didn't expect um so that could be one thing another element is that the track's been weirdly kind of not resurfaced but had some treatment done to it that early in the weekend we were hearing reports of grip changing corner to corner but also through the corner as well so it could have been that actually the reality didn't match up with mcclaren's expectations for how that car balance would be through the corner so all of that adding up maybe McLaren just got more out of their car than expected and others were held back more than they expected as well and the upshot is via great drive from Norris and some opportunistic work uh a surprise second place and a and and a splitting of the Red Bulls pretty much on Merit yeah really impressive performance and obviously caught even them by surprise does that thing you mentioned about the the limitation in terms of the tire moving from front to rear axle explain also why Ferrari weren't quite at the races so far we've got used to them effectively being second best and Red Bull's nearest Challenger so if Sergio Perez is not going to finish second behind happen you'd have expected Charlotte Clerk or caros SS to be in that place but they weren't quite quite there what was going on with Ferrari yeah it it could be the same problem because I I feel like um Mid weekend so we had the new Sprint format um for for for this this weekend the first Sprint of 24 which meant that with the different ordering of the the session Sprint qual Friday afternoon and the Sprint race Saturday morning and then qualifying for the main race on Saturday afternoon we had a new situation where Park F reopened for qualifying for the main race and the suggestion was that Ferrari made some setup changes off the back of what they'd learned in the Sprint to try and protect the tires a bit more because of that change to it being real limited that seemed to take a bit of potency out of the car over one laping qualifying so they were weaker over one lap than they expected to be started further back than they probably should have done and then the pace after that was kind of okay and and the way that lur stint went I feel like if he tra if he'd had track position over Norris that race could have played out differently now they quite evenly matched then in that case they were at their Pace I think so but I mean after the safety car and that run to the end it was clear that Norris had a pace that L clur couldn't match so it might well have been that that Norris would have had just about the edge and maybe could have done something about it rolls rolls revers but the pace offset might not have been so much that he could have overtaken lur on track we we we will never know the the only thing I would say is that lur did seem to be able to go with Norris in what looked like eeking out a very interesting One Stop which we didn't get to see play out because of the way those safety cars interrupted the race and gave the two Stoppers a free stop it kind of shook out a little differently I don't think Ferrari were as weak or problematic as it maybe looked on paper it was just a bunch of circumstances meant that they sacrificed track position and unlike in Japan for example they weren't able to regain that on on Sunday the McLaren was just surprisingly too quick hilarious irony that if the rules designed to allow teams more freedom to mess with their set UPS have actually helped Ferrari in the end make their race worse they sounds like they would have been better off just leaving the car alone so maybe sometimes you can have too much of a good thing well the same could be said of Mercedes yes Mercedes well let's talk about Mercedes because I mean they were just not at it again were they and a encouraging Sprint race for Lewis Hamilton obviously thanks to qualifying in the wet and qualifying out of position but in the Grand Prix itself I mean they're they're struggling to be even fourth best team never mind in that conversation for best of the rest yeah I I actually think on balance this weekend it was about what you have to expect from Mercedes in 2024 between the two cars they probably did about as much as you would think they would do obviously Hamilton massively overachieved in Sprint qualifying took great advantage of the of the wet showed them for for anyone who who sort of doubts whether or not he's one got the ability or two's got the interest when the chance was there he did take it in the wet and qualifying and and then I think in the Sprint race as well did a did a really good job but we know that when that car has track position especially over a Sprint race it's a shorter stint it can actually run competitively in that group of cars with Ferrari McLaren and Aston Martin so actually Hamilton was just at the very upper end of what that car can achieve on on Saturday then on Sunday qualifying in Sunday Russell was the was was the one who got the most out of the car but the most out of that car is sniping to beat an Aston one of the Ferraris one of the McLaren if they underachieve I do think the Mercedes is is fourth best and when Hamilton sometimes this season's been guilty of chasing a bit of a golden bullet on on setup I don't think it's the same as recent years where he has led experiments from for Mercedes in terms of trying to work out where the window of the car is I feel like this is more Hamilton Le he apologized for getting it wrong this weekend he then obviously set himself up for an even worse race day because the changes they made when Park F open made that car balance clearly clearly worse not just over one lap but also over a race distance so is the lesson there for Mercedes and Hamilton in particular he just needs to kind of well take a chill pill I guess and and not Chase Chase something that kind of isn't there maybe yeah I feel like I feel I feel like the the best the most rational way of looking at there is just like don't don't don't overreach kind of to a point with what you have on a given weekend except what you have the two lessons I would say for Mercedes are one a reinforcement of the lesson of the first few races which is you have to add more performance to that car it's just not quick enough but two just do the best that you can with what you got at the moment because Hamilton when he does that is's really really effective we saw it in part most of the weekend at Suzuka saw it in the Sprint here but he overreached and he paid the price for that come Sunday

Channel: THE RACE

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Keywords: f1, formula 1, formula one, F1 news, F1 latest, F1 updates, F1 explained, The Race, the-race.com, grand prix, f1 2024

Id: _83p0-dYcpE

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024