01/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo: "Ultimately, we weren't quick enough today, even without the penalties.
"We tried, and I was enjoying the wheel-to-wheel racing at the start, but I made contact with Nico in turn eight. I spoke to him after the race, I thought we had space, but felt the contact so didn't give him enough room, and I apologised. It's tough as you race hard but the smallest margins make a difference. The car felt ok after, and we pushed as hard as we could with what we had. I was trying to get the maximum out of the car from Friday afternoon to today. Personally, I feel a lot better this weekend, and we were close to scoring points."
Yuki Tsunoda: "I'm pretty frustrated today, it's a shame as my race finished a few laps after the start due to a contact with Nico (Hulkenberg). I tried to leave as much space as possible, but it seemed he locked up, causing him to lose control and crash into me. Unfortunately, we had to retire the car as we got some damage on the floor. I felt it straight away and tried to continue, but the car was sliding around and I simply wasn't able to drive it. We have Baku and Singapore next, our car should perform well there, so hopefully we'll have good weekends ahead."
Laurent Mekies (Team Principal): "First of all, what a brilliant advert this weekend has been for Formula 1, with a packed crowd at an updated Monza circuit treated to what most of them wanted, a home team win. Our congratulations go to Ferrari and Charles Leclerc for a great drive. As for today's race, one could say it was dictated by Hulkenberg, with Daniel given a 5 second penalty, having forced him of the track, before Nico then drove into Yuki, leading to us retiring the car. The most frustrating aspect of Yuki's retirement is that we lost 40 laps that would have increased our understanding of the updates we introduced here. Daniel then received a further 10 second penalty because we didn't execute the first one correctly. We will need to review our procedures in this scenario and learn from today's mistake. These things happen, but our pit crew work has generally been exceptional this season. We now stay in Monza for a Pirelli tyre test on Wednesday and then will have a few days to see what lessons we can learn from this weekend, especially in terms of the update package. In fact, it was meant to come at the next round in Azerbaijan, but a big push at the factory allowed us to bring one set of parts here in Monza, which we chose to run with Yuki. We cannot hide the fact that, even without his penalties, it would have been difficult for Daniel to finish in the points. We crucially need a performance step to return to the front of the midfield, and our focus is on the analysis of the data collected here before going to Baku."