A post-race penalty for Ricciardo in Miami
Monday, 9 May 2022
The McLaren's struggled with race pace.
After a much-hyped and eventful Miami Grand Prix, the McLaren team will come away from the weekend disappointed with their results.
Daniel Ricciardo started in 14th after a tough qualifying when the Australian had to push too hard in his out lap and bowed out in Q2.
After a strong start and making up two positions on the opening lap, Ricciardo settled in the mid-pack.
The strategy to stay out as long as possible meant Ricciardo was one of the last to pit for new tyres on lap 32, and he went onto hard tyres.
With a late safety car bunching the field up, Ricciardo could make his way up the field and crossed the line in P11.
However, Ricciardo was given a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, dropping the Australian to P13.
“It felt like an eventful race. There were some battles and also moments of fun but it felt like we were defending more than attacking. We were trying our best to hold on.”
“I think in the Medium stint we were able to go long at the beginning, but I’m not sure if we were that quick. It felt like we were able to at least keep the tyre going. But then with the Hard I just struggled, really struggled to get that going.”
Towards the end of the race when everything gripped-up, we just couldn’t run with the quicker cars. So, battling hard, and thought I got close to the points there, but it just wasn’t quite enough today. We’ll keep at it.”
I think this circuit certainly played to a few of our weaknesses. Lots of long corners, lots of long straights, so we’ve got to work on that, and then hopefully Barcelona will suit us a bit more, so I’m looking forward to that.”
The Spanish Grand Prix is next up and will take place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday, May 22.
Solid effort today, @danielricciardo 🧡
— F1 Australian Grand Prix (@ausgrandprix) May 9, 2022
The Aussie battled it out in a challenging Miami race 🇦🇺#MiamiGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/hjKzjFE4A1
