Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, Spa-Francorchamps, 2018

Ricciardo didn’t realise rear wing was broken

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Daniel Ricciardo reveals he didn’t realise his rear wing was broken when he went through Eau Rouge for the first time during Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

What they say

Ricciardo’s rear wing was broken when he was hit by Fernando Alonso at the start of the race.

I didn’t know the rear wing was done until the Safety Car came out. So going through Eau Rouge and that I had no idea. I knew I’d hit Kimi [Raikkonen]. Sorry, Kimi. I didn’t realise the rear was done, but I knew I got hit.

I looked in the mirror, I was like ‘oh no, rear wing’. And I know it’s not like a front wing, it takes time. So I feared that the race was done.

Obviously they did a really good job to get me out but still it was two laps down, something. In the end we had a look at the car once I pulled in and they put it on, for sure, but there was still floor damage so we lost 40 points [of downforce] from an already low-downforce car.

They did what they could and I told them I appreciate that but it was a bit too far gone.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

The debate over the Halo hasn’t gone away, but is it a conversation worth having?

I don’t really see the point in having this discussion.

Who cares if it helped last Sunday or not? There are certain cases in which it does help. So that’s it, it’s safer these days, end of discussion
@Fer-no65

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Ricciardo didn’t realise rear wing was broken”

  1. Of course he didn’t realize it. He couldn’t see the rear wing past his ENORMOUS BALLS!!!

    1. Good one.

    2. I wonder what’s Vandoornes excuse now…

      Ricky loses floor and rear wing… Still faster than a McLaren!

      1. Ask Alonso :p

    3. I’m curious to know what happened in the collision with Räikkönen. It wasn’t clear from the onboard whether it was a separate shunt or whether it was triggered by Ricciardo getting hit. Looking at Ricciardo’s onboard you hardly notice the first collision, it doesn’t seem to have any effect other than taking off his rear wing

      1. it doesn’t seem to have any effect other than taking off his rear wing

        reading this it sounds very strange..
        Ae you for real?

        Loosing your rear wing will have a massive reaction on the car handling.

        1. not at that speed.. Might be disputed if they had a Monaco wing on it, but RBR used a very slim wing

        2. What I meant by that was the first collision didn’t appear to shunt or budge the body of Ricciardo’s car. From his on board I couldn’t even tell when it happened.

          It was almost as though the collision with Räikkönen was completely independent, for the reasons Bart says below

      2. he got hit, then accelerated away (as they do when exiting a corner).
        Kimi got held up by Magnussen, which Daniel did not notice until it was too late – one and a half second after he got hit himself. So it was Daniel’s fault, but an excusable one.

        1. Hahhahaah.. nice try, orange sherlock

  2. It was obvious he didn’t know from the onboard, he tried to do Eau Rouge (And Radillon, actually) pretty much flat out!

  3. And in other news, Kimi was schooling the pit wall with exactly how it was flexing under different loads, was voicing his concerns, had to endure their condescension that the “structural parts were OK” and finally prevailed in convincing them it was undriveable after his DRS got stuck as well.

    Nine times out of then, the RBR pitwall and garage are nimble and think on their feet, with Ferrari it sadly seems to be the other way around.

    1. good point there @phylyp

      1. Cheers, BasCB

    2. I bet if Kimi was a doctor he would be able to diagnose his patients just by looking at them and then proceed with adequate treatment

      Can you imagine entering the surgery room and the surgeon is no other than Kimi Raikonen?

      Dr. Raikonen have you checked the blood pressure?
      Yes yes yes, I’m checking the blood pressure all the time, you don’t have to remind me every 5 seconds

      Dr. Raikonen have you controlled the bleeding?
      Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing

      Dr. Raikonen we lost him, you missed it
      Yeah, well I was taking a s…

  4. They had so little rear wing, I’m not surprised.

    Maybe they should just dispense with it completely for Monday – they’ll still be way down on top speed.

  5. Better get used to these DF levels, Renault won’t have more than this.

    1. Ahah, so true, the lap without rear wing must’ve been preparation for 2019!

  6. Why shouldn’t Stroll drive at Force Point aka Force India in 2019? He essentially owns the team. Has F1 moved past the wealthy playboy driver phase of its existence? Is it nothing but corporate money now? In my opinion, that would be a shame since corporations have zero personality.

    1. Since the boy is so milquetoast, it’s just boring. If he actually had a personality then we could look past the meh results.

    2. one thing that strikes me about lance stroll is his total lack of personality. the idea that you just move teams because your dad has bought into them is totally abhorrent to the idea of F1 as a sport, as the pinnacle of motorsport. it’s bad enough as it is, but at least with pay drivers they are helping the team out, enabling them to run a decent team mate, who doesn’t have the funds. with williams this year, it has gone further than that (two pay drivers, tangibly worse than other candidates). with Force india it could go even further (shifting your son into the better team, when you have so much money you can choose between which team to buy a seat in!).

      in a sense, strolls case is closer to the wealthy play boy – he is not promoting a brand (e.g. maldonado or other pay drivers backed by some corporate entity), he is just doing what he wants to do, which happens to be a very expensive hobby.

      1. I don’t understand. Any F1 driver would jump at the chance of moving from the bottom/second from bottom team to a top of midfield team. If Williams had done a better job with their car then Stroll wouldn’t have bought FI.

      2. he is just doing what he wants to do, which happens to be a very expensive hobby.

        Which isn’t this what Formula 1 was before all the manufacturer owned teams?

  7. Nice find with that article about Ferrucci @keithcollantine. Until I read it, I had almost forgotten about the kid.

    Funny how a month is talked about as if a large amount of time has passed in it. And while I get that there was a medical emergency, a pro driver surely has to first finish his job (i.e. talk to the steawards) – if Ferrucci felt this emergency was so pressing, maybe it also made him less fit to drive and helped cause his brain fade – or he should have parked his car, excused himself from the meeting and flewn back right then and there.

    Also, the author seems to awknoledge only Ferrucci’s point of view on things. It doesn’t reflect on a season of making racist jokes of his teammate (toghether with his father). And it is a bit childish to ask whether nobody contacted Ferrucci for his view, because I am sure that every news outlet was trying to get his statement at the time, but we only got his “apology” after a couple of days.

    1. It’s a weird article. It almost seems to be written by two people.
      The bit about apologising and keeping a low profile is good and creates some positive emotions.
      But why (or who) decide to include a lame excuse on the MAGA story (who cares) and the even lamer explanation regarding the mobile whilst driving (use that excuse on court) and all forgetting about the two deliberate crashes.

    2. “… a very serious family medical emergency…”
      I can never believe such childish excuses when given so long afterwards – when they’ve had time to think of something… It’s like an excuse for not handing in homework…!

  8. “(Chase) Carey should now be looking at Force India to ensure that Stroll does not get a seat there at the expense of Ocon next year. Then it would not be the best 20 drivers on the grid.”

    Well as much as some people don’t like the idea of this type of thing, If his father and team owner wants to put his son in a car then that’s it. Stroll has a super license a helmet and racing overalls, his father has supplied a team. If Ocon does lose his seat that will be bad, and as unfair as it may be it’s not the place of F1 to dictate to a team who will drive for a team.

    1. Agree. It’s not the first time a lesser driver wins a seat over a better one, and won’t be the last.
      @johnrkh

    2. @johnrkh – yeah, good point. Seeing as Stroll is already on the grid, I don’t see how the author can declare that his moving to RPFI will result in “it would not be the best 20 drivers on the grid”.

      Instead of Carey, if the FIA went very aggressive on the eligibility criteria for an F1 superlicense to weed out drivers like Stroll, then the effect it might have had on the other side would have been that we don’t have Max on the grid, and that would in turn be a prospect that alarms Carey, given how many bums Max puts in seats.

    3. @johnrkh I couldn’t agree more with you.
      @coldfly @phylyp – Good points from you as well.

    4. There are very few or no driver on the grid that got their without financial aid.

      Its sponsors taking a liking to them on their way thru the junior series or family.

      This is simply how Motorsport works.

      There are rules set in place for who may drive a formula 1 in the championship, which team they drive for should be up to the teams them selves.

  9. Regarding The Times-article: I disagree with the point of it. I disagree that Stroll’s potential move to RPFI would be a farce. Yes, he mightn’t be the most talented driver on the grid, but this wouldn’t be the first time that a more competent driver would lose his drive to a driver with a significant financial backing behind him. Furthermore, even if he were to get the RPFI-drive with Perez remaining there, it still wouldn’t automatically mean that Ocon would be left without a drive for next season.
    – I entirely agree with the COTD.

    1. Hi Jere – I don’t disagree with your comment – several people have expressed similar thoughts… but… just for the record, can anyone give a few more examples of where a (proven) talented driver lost his seat in this way because someone else had ‘loadsamoney’…?

      1. Most recently – a lot of Kubica fans would say that he deserved a Williams seat more than Sirotkin or Stroll, the team’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Of course, he didn’t lose a seat, he lost out on an opportunity to get a seat, so that’s not a perfect example.

  10. Totally agree with CotD. There’s a weird thing with the Halo that lots of people seem to want evidence in every crash that it has done something meaningful. In a way that you never see with other safety devices. When a wheel tether does its job, who demands to know for sure that a wheel would have hit a person? Nobody wants an example of where the added Kevlar strip on the helmet visor has stopped object ingress. It seems to be subject to a unique amount of scrutiny, and apparently needs to be demonstrated to have unquestionably saved a person’s life before its presence is justified or accepted.

    Sure, it looks ugly. But who cares. It’s there, it’s staying, and the cars are definitely safer for its presence.

    1. @mazdachris Fair enough, however, you ask who cares, and indeed most people were quite opposed to the ‘ugly thing’ or should that read ‘thong’ so I don’t think it should be a surprise that some are looking to justify it’s presence, or hope that it proves to be useless or what have you, and hope it gets gone.

      But I think the main reason it has been debated this week is that for the first time the halo ended up half blacken by a tire in a fairly involved melee. Is it reasonable to expect that to not be a topic of discussion after the race? Millions voiced their opinion against it, yet it has gotten little mention this season, and I certainly never did mind it that much and quickly got used to it and think it looks like it belongs now, but many would disagree, and now we have seen it in use. For me there’s absolutely no surprise it’s being discussed again at least temporarily.

      1. @Robbie I’m not surprised by the conversation. I’m just saying it’s pointless – if you want definitive evidence that it has saved a life you’re probably not going to get it. And like the example of the visor changes made after Massa’s head injury, a thing doesn’t need to prove itself in the field before its presence is justified. In the sense that it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. I saw comments on this site where people were dismissing the impact marks on the halo from the GP, saying it didn’t prove that the device had definitively saved a life. The inference there surely is that if you can’t prove it has absolutely saved a life, then you can’t prove it was ever necessary. Ultimately it’s a person making an argument that the halo shouldn’t be there. It’s an unwinnable argument, because the flipside, as you saw with Jules Bianchi, Dan Wheldon, and to an extent with Simona Da Silvestri, is that people will always try to say that the halo could not have saved every single life, as an argument against its existence. In other words even when people die, there are still those who will argue against safety improvements. It’s a pointless argument and one which should be disregarded. When you say to those people “See! Look at these tyre marks, it definitely did its job!” all you’re doing is just validating their position in the first place. Halo doesn’t need to save a life. The fact that people have died in the past from head injuries shows that cockpit protection is necessary. That’s where the debate begins and ends.

        1. Oh lawks, sorry Simona! I meant Maria De Villota.

          1. @mazdachris Yeah, very true. Good points.

    2. Only look at the way the top three drivers climb out their car when in the podiumzone. It takes ages and looks very clumsy to say the least.
      I am afraid Halo will costs lifes sooner or later.

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