Ricciardo lost podium spot due to ‘wounded’ Red Bull F1 car

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was left to rue front-wing damage that hampered his race as he missed out on a podium finish at the French Grand Prix. 

Ricciardo took advantage of a collision between Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas at Turn 1 to slot into third place behind Red Bull teammate in the early stages of the race. 

The Australian had to pass a recovering Vettel following his pit stop but soon found himself back in a third, a position that seemed comfortable until he picked up front-wing damage. Ricciardo lost significant performance as he fell into the clutches of Kimi Raikkonen, who passed the Red Bull driver to claim the final spot on the rostrum. 

“I’m disappointed,” Ricciardo said. “We had pretty good pace towards the end of that first stint. It seemed that we were catching Max and pulling away from Kimi. When I pitted, the boys said the front left part of the wing was damaged. 

“They think it happened about two laps before the pit stop because I started to all of a sudden get quite a lot of understeer. I don’t know if it was a failure or we hit some debris. That broke. 

“So then already with the soft tyre we were struggling when we left the pits. And then a few laps later the team said the right part broke. So both parts identically seemed to break.”

Ricciardo said he was unsure whether it was a component failure or if debris had caused the damage to his front-wing. 

“Whether there was a failure or debris I don’t know yet,” he added. “But it happened and we were slow. Obviously because of that we had a lot less downforce and understeering. 

“So Kimi was always going to catch us with that pace, but the blue flags – that was really bad. But we were a wounded car from just before the first pit stop.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was frustrated Ricciardo’s issue prevented his side from claiming a double podium finish. 

“It’s a shame with Daniel, the front wing [broke] about lap 20 something,” he explained. “The top two elements of the flap became disbanded. Maybe some debris or something like that hit it. So frustrating.

“It was a good haul of points for the team today but it would have been nice to have both of them on the podium.”