Daniel Ricciardo says he thought his race was over when he realised he had lost his MGU-K during the Monaco Grand Prix.
After building up an early lead, Ricciardo confirmed that he had lost power from his MGU-K early in the running, but managed to hold on to the lead through the remainder of the race.
“We lost the MGU-K, basically,” says Ricciardo. “I don’t know how much power that is, but it was a lot. So I was only using six gears – we have eight in a Formula One car – I just only had enough power to get into sixth.
“I thought it was over. As soon as I went down on power I pressed down on the throttle and it went ‘brrrrrrr’ and I just had half the power, it seemed. I thought it was pretty much going to come to a stop. So I came on the radio and was like ‘I’ve lost power’ and for a few seconds I just wanted to close my eyes and start crying already.”
Despite the setback, Ricciardo was able to hold position at the front of the field ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari to ultimately his first Monaco Grand Prix victory.
“Two years in the making, this,” Ricciardo says. “I finally feel like the redemption has arrived. We had a lot to deal with during the race. We got home just using six gears. Thanks to the team we got it back, so I’m stoked.”
2018 F1 season
- McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
- ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
- Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
- McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
- Ricciardo: Baku “s***show” was Red Bull’s fault
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
27th May 2018, 18:33
Redemption while his contract is being discussed… the other guy on the garage keeps binning it too. Danny is just masterclass, love the guy, he truly deserved it… hope his future is decided soon and for the better.
Thomson (@fish123)
27th May 2018, 18:37
+1
100%
Jere (@jerejj)
27th May 2018, 18:34
No more than six gears needed anymore.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
27th May 2018, 18:40
Very glad he managed to bring that car to the checker flag. He really deserved it.
Sometimes I thought RBR tweaks Renault setting too much and make them unreliable, but today they were lucky. Not so with Alonso though.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
27th May 2018, 19:31
Get this man a contract! What a drive, superb. He is proving to be a driver of the highest quality, and I hope he gets the drive he deserves next year.
Gary Anderson’s prediction for this years World Champion is Dan, he’s won 2 a piece, and if it wasnt for his breakdown in Bahrain and the crash in Baku, he’d be much closer to the top two! He is a clear contender!
Hope the Renault power upgrade work next time out, Dan is strong around Canada.
#believe
Jon (@johns23)
28th May 2018, 5:06
Wish he was a contender. He is but he isn’t. Mercedes and Ferrari will be too strong on the rest of the circuits barring Singapore.
Would be awesome for Danny Ric to be able to compete with Lewis and Seb through out the year.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
28th May 2018, 5:37
Red bull gets ruined by qualifying, even at tracks where engine matters a lot, their race pace is competitive, there’s no saying they couldn’t hold off ferrari and mercedes if they started on pole, but because renault qualifying mode isn’t as good as the other 2, they most of the time start too far back to challenge the others, overtaking is too hard nowadays.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
27th May 2018, 23:14
To actually mentally manage himself and the car for such a sustained period after that failure shows just how good Daniel is.
A truly impressive drive.
I can’t believe how slowly the lap count seemed to go for us sitting in our lounge chairs in Aus. Real edge of the seat stuff.