Daniel Ricciardo says Yuki Tsunoda's post-race lunge and near-collision was a sign of “immaturity” but he will discuss it with his teammates as tensions rise at Bahrain's RB.
At the opening round Bahrain GP, Ricciardo was running 13th and 14th behind Tsunoda, but because his teammate was wearing hard tires and soft tires, RB instructed Tsunoda to let Ricciardo pass.
Team orders and tensions at VCARB
He balked at the “driver replacement” order, saying, “Are you kidding me?”
Tsunoda passed Ricciardo after one lap. “Oh, thank you, I appreciate it,” he sarcastically told his team.
However, as his temper continued to rise, the Japanese driver made his feelings known to Ricciardo by accelerating past the Australian into the Turn 8 hairpin on the cool-down lap.
He locked up and went wide, going around the outside of Ricciardo and almost colliding with his teammate.
It would be an understatement to say that Ricardo was not impressed by Tsunoda's antics. I'll save you…he's wearing a helmet! ”
Asked about the incident after the Grand Prix, Ratel told F1TV: I was on the radio trying to keep my cool. You could say it's a little immature.
“I’m obviously very sensible, but let’s call it immature.
“I think he was obviously unhappy with the team's orders, but to tell you the truth, this is something we talked about before the race.
“There was a very good chance I would go soft at the end of the race, so he knew I had a chance of getting a pace advantage at the end, and if he got the call, will happen.”
“It's not like he won't give me points. We're fighting for 13th place so I want him to give me the best chance of getting at least one car in the points.”
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Ricciardo was not happy with his team-mates' slow reaction to team orders, but denied that he had awarded the team points at the Sakhir circuit.
He said he probably could have overtaken Kevin Magnussen for 12th place, but that would be as high as he could have climbed.
When asked, “If Tsunoda had moved right away, would he have been able to overtake Haas?'' he answered, “I definitely think we would have had a better chance.''
“You have to use the soft as much as possible because with the soft you are slowly going further and further away with each lap, and the more traffic you have, the more that distance starts to decrease. So every lap counts. It will be.
“At the end of the day, I don't think we did enough to score points. We could have gotten Kevin and then gotten closer to Zhou, but things didn't change much. It is what it is. .
“I think it's been a long year. We need to make sure everyone is okay. So we'll go back and have a meeting. Be very grown up and look forward to Jeddah.”
Read next: Hiroki Tsunoda sets record soon after video of cooldown lap involving Ricciardo was released