2016 United States Grand Prix team radio transcript

Nico Rosberg didn’t have any “scary pace” and Daniel Ricciardo “would have beaten him” had it not been for the Virtual Safety Car period, the Red Bull driver’s engineer reckoned at the end of the United States Grand Prix.

The VSC period, ironically triggered by Ricciardo’s own team mate, meant Rosberg emerged from the pits in second place instead of third. An unhappy Ricciardo said at the time he would “love to catch that mofo [motherfucker]” – a remark revealed in a later comment from his team principal Christian Horner. “It means he’s a really nice person, one of my best mates,” Ricciardo deadpanned.

2016 United States Grand Prix in pictures

His team mate’s race had begun to go awry when he came into the pits by mistake, alerting his team as he arrived in the pit lane. Prior to that he had tellingly rebuffed a suggestion that he looked after his tyres by replying “I’m not here to finish fourth”.

Verstappen wasn’t the only driver who had trouble in the pits. Kimi Raikkonen’s race ended when his team failed to attach a wheel properly during his stop. They urged him to let his car roll back into the pits but Raikkonen was concerned about breaking the rules if he did so. As the rules only prohibit reversing in the pits under the car’s own power, he would have been fine, but by the time the team got the message through his car had got too hot and he had to retire.

Their problems allowed Fernando Alonso to grab fifth after barging past an unimpressed Felipe Massa. The pair were separated by Carlos Sainz Jnr who was thrilled with the outcome. Earlier in the race he had successfully urged Toro Rosso to impose team orders on Daniil Kvyat to get him out of the way.

Kvyat’s race was compromised by his first-lap contact with Sergio Perez. The Force India driver was unimpressed with the “idiot that ruined our race”.

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2016 United States Grand Prix team radio transcript

Lap*	Driver	Message
PR	To Daniel Ricciardo	For info tail wind is strongest turn two, three, four, five, also braking for eleven strong tail wind.
1	From Valtteri Bottas	Puncture, puncture.
1	To Valtteri Bottas	Copy, puncture.
1	From Nico Hulkenberg	I got big damage at the front.
1	To Nico Hulkenberg	The pressures look OK, is there any damage Nico?
1	From Nico Hulkenberg	I think it’s the steering or something. I got squeezed in the middle. Can’t turn left, basically.
2	From Daniil Kvyat	I had contact.
2	From Sebastian Vettel	Check the car, I made contact, somebody hit me, check the pressures.
2	To Sebastian Vettel	The car is fine.
3	From Felipe Nasr	Is something broke on the rear? Because I’m sliding everywhere. The rear is very loose.
3	To Felipe Nasr	Understood Felipe. At the moment looks OK on the data.
3	To Nico Hulkenberg	Copy that. Bring it back to the pits if you can.
4	From Jenson Button	I think I’ve hit some debris.
4	To Jenson Button	Copy. Tyre pressures are OK, Jenson. Aero data looks OK after the debris. Well done on Gutierrez.
4	From Sergio Perez	I got hit very hard from behind.
5	To Pascal Wehrlein	OK Pascal Esteban is under investigation for forcing another driver off the track.
5	From Sergio Perez	Yes from my side OK.
5	To Sergio Perez	OK.
5	From Sergio Perez	What an idiot, man. What a [censored by FOM] idiot. What he was doing?
6	To Max Verstappen	OK Max just an update. Things starting to stabilise in and around you as you can see I’m sure. That was the fastest lap of the race. Other people looking after their tyres but not a disaster at the moment.
7	To Fernando Alonso	Fernando for info there are no threats from behind currently but there are cars on the pit gap.
7	From Fernando Alonso	Yeah we will try to overtake the Toro Rosso.
8	From Valtteri Bottas	Is everything OK, the car? The rear end feels a bit poor.
8	To Valtteri Bottas	Yep we do see some very small damage to the rear. Aero balance is a little bit further forwards. But your pace is OK.
8	To Daniel Ricciardo	Box, Daniel, box.
9	From Daniil Kvyat	I got no brakes into turn 11. Brakes are generally really weak. There’s a lot of sliding everywhere.
9	To Jolyon Palmer	OK Jo you can use overtake to try to pass Kevin.
9	From Jolyon Palmer	Yep. I’m quicker.
9	To Nico Rosberg	OK so we’re going for the long game Nico so push hard now. Ricciardo and Raikkonen both in the pits.
9	From Nico Rosberg	Push hard is not the long game.
10	To Romain Grosjean	Good job. Allez mon Kiki! [Come on!]
10	To Lewis Hamilton	OK Lewis go strat mode five and box, box.
10	From Nico Rosberg	So box, box, box Nico.
10	To Max Verstappen	OK box and pit confirm Max.
11	To Sebastian Vettel	Pace is good, keep pushing.
12	From Kimi Raikkonen	The grip doesn’t feel very good on this tyre.
12	From Fernando Alonso	Behind Renaults, being lapped, what a disaster.
14	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	Danny needs to let me by.
14	To Daniil Kvyat	Next car behind is Carlos, new softs, do not impede Carlos.
14	To Carlos Sainz Jnr	Carlos, Danny will let you by.
14	To Daniil Kvyat	Danny please confirm. Carlos is on new softs, we are on different strategy. Thank you.
14	To Nico Rosberg	So situation is you are the only car on medium. So got the long game, it’s going to come back towards us.
14	To Sebastian Vettel	And box, Sebastian, box.
15	To Carlos Sainz Jnr	OK Carlos there is debris on the exit kerb of turn one. Careful there.
15	From Max Verstappen	That’s how we do it!
15	To Max Verstappen	Nice job, mate.
17	To Daniil Kvyat	OK Danny we will have a ten second penalty on the next pit stop for the incident lap one. Keep the head down we need to go as long as possible now and we change the strategy. Keep the head down.
18	From Lewis Hamilton	Pace OK?
18	To Lewis Hamilton	Pace still good, Lewis.
20	To Max Verstappen	Max just make sure that we can complete the stint we need OK, mate.
20	From Max Verstappen	I’m not here to finish fourth.
20	To Jolyon Palmer	OK Jo you are much faster than Kevin, his pace in 45.5 at the moment, and you in 44.7…
20	From Jolyon Palmer	Yeah, I’ve know this the whole race.
22	To Jenson Button	Well done Jenson, well done. Just watch the locking on the front-left.
22	To Daniil Kvyat	Not much we can do with top speed, Danny. Just keep the head down, OK?
22	From Daniil Kvyat	OK.
22	To Kevin Magnussen	OK Kev, Jo’s now four-and-a-half seconds behind you, he’s just done a 45.4, we need to pick up the pace if we can.
22	From Kevin Magnussen	I’m just a little bit stuck behind the Sauber so take it easy guys.
22	To Kevin Magnussen	Understood Kev.
23	From Daniil Kvyat	Fourth gear wasn’t coming in.
23	To Daniil Kvyat	Understood.
24	To Sergio Perez	Checo how is the aero balance? We think there may be some losses at the rear from the damage.
24	From Sergio Perez	Yeah I agree. I have no traction at all. But at the same time I have a lot of understeer.
24	To Sergio Perez	Copy.
25	To Jolyon Palmer	OK Jo nice overtake on Nasr. Go and catch Kevin now he’s a second slower than you.
26	To Lewis Hamilton	Lewis you can afford to pick up the pace a little bit, it won’t be long now.
27	From Max Verstappen	I’m boxing, I’m boxing, I’m boxing.
27	To Max Verstappen	What happened, Max?
27	From Max Verstappen	I thought you boxed me, sorry.
28	To Sebastian Vettel	Because Verstappen had a [censored by FOM] up, a very long pit stop, so we can come ahead of him and go to the end.
29	To Jenson Button	Jenson we’re box this lap, box this lap, everything you’ve got.
29	To Sebastian Vettel	Box, Sebastian, box.
30	From Max Verstappen	I have an engine failure, I think, or something.
30	From Max Verstappen	There’s something hitting the engine. The faster I drive, the harder it hits.
30	To Max Verstappen	Can you try to get up the gears or not Max?
30	From Max Verstappen	Yeah but something is hitting hard inside the engine.
31	To Lewis Hamilton	VSC, keep the delta positive, you are boxing under VSC.
32	To Pascal Wehrlein	The car ahead is Nasr, he looks like he could be trying to one-stop and is lapping quite slowly at the moment.
32	From Daniel Ricciardo	So they got a free pit stop, basically?
32	To Daniel Ricciardo	Yes mate, that is correct.
32	From Daniel Ricciardo	That’s so [censored by FOM] up.
33	To Felipe Massa	OK so Verstappen’s car’s just being moved out of the way so restart soon.
33	From Felipe Massa	They’re just too slow, man. Cannot do that.
33	From Felipe Massa	Just lost four seconds! Four seconds! Unbelievable! Look where Alonso is and look where he was. So four seconds.
34	To Daniel Ricciardo	OK mate you did a good job there. It wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been. You can see Rosberg ahead. Let’s get after him.
35	From Jolyon Palmer	Can you not help me out a little bit here?
36	From Sergio Perez	Is the wind picking up?
36	To Sergio Perez	Yes, Checo, yes.
36	To Sebastian Vettel	We have some rear wing drop-outs as you may notice.
36	From Sebastian Vettel	Yeah, some! Some is good, keep joking.
39	From Kimi Raikkonen	Why there was sparks at the rear?
39	To Kimi Raikkonen	K2 is available.
39	From Kimi Raikkonen	No, why was there…
39	To Kimi Raikkonen	There was a gun still attached as you left.
39	From Kimi Raikkonen	OK.
39	To Kimi Raikkonen	Stop, stop Kimi. Stop stop stop.
40	To Kimi Raikkonen	Sorry Kimi we think the rear’s not attached.
40	From Kimi Raikkonen	So what do I do? Switch off or go?
40	To Kimi Raikkonen	Can you come back to the pit lane? Roll back into the pit lane?
40	From Kimi Raikkonen	What you want that I reverse? I can just slide it down. It’s disallowed?
40	To Kimi Raikkonen	Don’t reverse.
40	From Kimi Raikkonen	If I let go the brakes it’s going to slide down.
40	To Kimi Raikkonen	Just let go of the brakes, Kimi.
40	From Kimi Raikkonen	So you want that I switch off?
40	To Kimi Raikkonen	You can reverse back. OK we need to switch off. Switch off, Kimi, we’re too hot, I’m sorry. So switch off Kimi, we’re too hot.
41	To Daniil Kvyat	We are catching Ericsson nicely. There is still some points on the table if something happens in front.
44	To Felipe Massa	We’re going to get him this time so we stay in go charge and use overtake.
44	From Daniel Ricciardo	Keep me posted on Rosberg’s times. I would love to catch that [censored by FOM].
45	From Kevin Magnussen	How much better if super-soft at the end? Where would I finish theoretically?
45	To Kevin Magnussen	There’s a possibility to finish two positions in front of Ericsson who’s two cars ahead of you now.
45	From Kevin Magnussen	OK let’s do that.
45	To Kevin Magnussen	OK.
48	To Sergio Perez	The group of Sainz, Massa and Alonso are fighting ahead.
49	To Romain Grosjean	They have a system problem with the blue flag so when Ricciardo’s close enough let him through. That’s blue flag now, blue flag for Ricciardo. Perfect dude, thank you.
50	To Jenson Button	Jenson blue flags Rosberg is the car behind.
50	From Jenson Button	Yeah he just locked up and ran wide, so dropped back.
53	From Fernando Alonso	[Censored by FOM] Felipe closed me on the door. I was already alongside him.
53	To Fernando Alonso	Any car damage?
53	From Fernando Alonso	I don’t know but [censored by FOM] you cannot close the door there that easy with half a car in front of you.
53	To Fernando Alonso	Understood. Let’s go and get Sainz.
54	To Daniil Kvyat	Vettel exiting the pit lane now. If you can get in front Magnussen will get blue flag.
54	From Felipe Massa	He just pushed me out.
54	To Felipe Massa	We’re talking to the FIA. Let’s get right back on him.
54	To Felipe Massa	OK Felipe so they’re going to investigate Alonso at the end of the race so we need to stay within five seconds of him.
55	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	Yeah my tyres are finished.
55	To Carlos Sainz Jnr	Hold on, hold on.
55	To Felipe Massa	OK Felipe we’ve got a front-left puncture.
55	From Felipe Massa	Is it the last lap or not?
55	To Felipe Massa	No, box this lap.
56	From Fernando Alonso	Yee-ha!
VL	To Fernando Alonso	OK Fernando that is the chequered flag. Fantastic drive. P5. Awesome.
VL	From Fernando Alonso	Nice. Nice race, guys. Fight until the end like you saw. Good points.
VL	To Fernando Alonso	Yep great work well done. Did Will shake your hand or not? I can’t remember.
VL	From Fernando Alonso	Ah, yeah. Many times. So now we can get back to normal. Not shaking and shaking. Nice races now.
VL	To Fernando Alonso	Great. Nice work.
VL	To Jenson Button	Jenson that’s P9 well done you’ve made up ten places today, good result.
VL	From Jenson Button	Good job guys looks like a good haul of points. Obviously didn’t have the outright pace but not too bad especially the first couple of laps. A lot of fun.
VL	To Jenson Button	Yeah Jenson first couple of laps were mega.
VL	To Romain Grosjean	Chequered flag. 100th race back in the points, awesome dude.
VL	To Romain Grosjean	Well done Romain. Fantastic. We got a point.
VL	To Lewis Hamilton	Get in there, mate! What a drive. Really well managed. Awesome result, Lewis.
VL	To Lewis Hamilton	Perfect drive, Lewis. Really well controlled, fantastic.
VL	To Daniil Kvyat	Hard luck with the penalty. You’ve done a very good job today, anyway.
VL	From Daniil Kvyat	Yeah sorry about the penalty. We review it of course but nothing can do.
VL	To Daniil Kvyat	The gap to Magnussen is 4.3 seconds, let’s see what happens after the race.
VL	From Daniil Kvyat	Well he has to get a penalty, come on. Otherwise everyone can overtake off the track, Charlie, come on man.
VL	To Daniil Kvyat	Copy Danny. We will review it later.
VL	To Kevin Magnussen	OK Kev so nice job. Currently P11 there’s an investigation possibly for the overtake with Kvyat. But nice job in the end and where we’re coming from qualifying yesterday.
VL	From Kevin Magnussen	Well done everyone in the garage, really good job.
VL	To Felipe Massa	Well we’ve been incredibly unlucky there. We were so much quicker than them.
VL	From Felipe Massa	Unbelievable.
VL	To Felipe Massa	It’s a real shame.
VL	To Felipe Nasr	So Felipe P15 at the end. Good race from you, good job.
VL	From Sergio Perez	Yeah sorry there with this idiot that ruined our race. I don’t know what he was trying to do and I think we had quite poor damage. It was very difficult, especially the last stint, the ride of the car was very poor.
VL	From Daniel Ricciardo	Cheers guys. Not the most exciting but it’s a podium. Thank you.
VL	To Daniel Ricciardo	So we were obviously unfortunate with the VSC. It was due to Verstappen had a gearbox problem obviously and retired. So Rosberg basically would have been five seconds behind us at our pit stop but he got a free ten seconds, came out five seconds in front of us. I think you would have and should have beaten him. I don’t think he had any scary pace, you did a good job today mate.
VL	From Daniel Ricciardo	Yeah I don’t doubt it. Frustrating but what do you do? It sucks. Alright. Thanks anyways, guys. Appreciate it.
VL	To Daniel Ricciardo	Well done Daniel it was a good drive. I think Rosberg on a normal strategy would probably have put the softs on as well because he run that [medium] in the middle [stint]. And they did play out your nice message on the live feed so commentators trying to work out what a ‘mofo’ is.
VL	From Daniel Ricciardo	It means he’s a really nice person, one of my best mates.
VL	To Nico Rosberg	Nice recovery there Nico, nice recovery.
VL	To Carlos Sainz Jnr	Haha! P6 Carlos! P6! Well done, awesome race. I liked it. Good, really good job. Awesome last stint.
VL	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	Thank you. Yeah I think that was the maximum guys. Good job everyone, we deserve to be back.
VL	To Carlos Sainz Jnr	I think this was one of the best races you’ve done with us. Well done Carlos.
VL	To Sebastian Vettel	P4, Sebastian. P4. Well done, good drive.

Lap: Refers to lap message was broadcast on. There may be a delay between messages being said and being broadcast. PR = pre-race; FL = formation lap; VL = victory lap.
Message: Repetitive or irrelevant messages omitted. Notes in italics. Highlights in bold.

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7 comments on “2016 United States Grand Prix team radio transcript”

Tristan
26th October 2016, 16:27

Well he has to get a penalty, come on. Otherwise everyone can overtake off the track, Charlie, come on man.

-Daniil Kvyat

Gotta actually agree with Kvyat there. Really strange decisions by FIA to all of a sudden just allow everybody running off the track all over the place, including overtaking. If this is the rule, then make it the rule… If not, then follow the rules. Just makes F1 a joke of a competition, especially for those who are supposed to be the best in the world, and showing the rest of the world (especially those in junior formula’s) how it’s supposed to be done.

27.4 Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not
deliberately leave the track without a justifiable reason.
Drivers will be judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains in contact with it and, for the avoidance of doubt, any white lines defining the track edges are considered to be part of the track but the kerbs are not.
Should a car leave the track the driver may re-join, however, this may only be done when it is safe to do so and without gaining any lasting advantage. At the absolute discretion of the race director a driver may be given the opportunity to give back the whole of any advantage he gained by leaving the track.

There’s no argument to be made that this regulation wasn’t breached an inordinate amount throughout the weekend. Where is the consistency? Furthermore where is the media pressure regarding this?
1. kpcart
  26th October 2016, 17:06
  
  Agreed
  1. Thomas
    26th October 2016, 19:11
    
    Wasnt he referring to Magnussen passing him? Magnussen -was- subsequently penalized (even if, having only seen it once, I think Kyvat made defensive motions that made Magnussen take evasive manouver). But I’d agree that the rules are not always consistently enforced, and that this is a source of frustration about F1.
2. peejay
  26th October 2016, 18:28
  
  I generally agree. However penalizing Magnussen for driving in the same place as everybody else, is not right.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
26th October 2016, 18:43

Came for the Ferrari pit stop entertainment (pronounced shambles), was not disappointed.

From Daniel Ricciardo
It means he’s a really nice person, one of my best mates.

Priceless! 😂
1. Boomerang
  27th October 2016, 5:44
  
  Ricci rocks! ;-)
AntoineDeParis (@antoine-de-paris)
26th October 2016, 21:35

this “mofo” comment suits Danny’s redneck style lol.