Daniel Ricciardo has admitted frustration with himself following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday in which his race was prematurely cut short. The Renault man, in his attempts to get back on track after sliding wayward, hastily reversed into the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat.
In the latter stages of the race in Baku, Ricciardo attempted to get beyond Kvyat into 10th at Turn 3, but misjudged the overtake and ended up veering off-course. The Russian followed, and Ricciardo didn’t spot him, resulting in a collision between the two when the latter reversed without looking.
The Australian reckons that Renault could have finished within the points positions if he didn’t act so rashly.
“We were starting to bring a nice rhythm to the race,” said Ricciardo.
“All weekend we haven’t really been on it. That’s why getting into the points would have been a fairly good recovery for us. That’s why I’m gutted not to pull that off.
“It looked like we had pretty good pace on that medium, on the soft we struggled at the beginning.
“If we finished the race we would have been quite upbeat about it.”
Following a FIA investigation, Ricciardo was given a three-place grid penalty for the next GP in Spain for the incident.