Ricciardo felt French GP penalties were “too harsh”

Daniel Ricciardo felt his double-whammy penalty at the French Grand Prix was “too harsh” and reckons he deserved to score a point for “trying”.

The Renault driver was handed two separate five-second time penalties for incidents with McLaren’s Lando Norris and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen as he attempted to make up positions on the final lap of last weekend’s French Grand Prix.

Ricciardo ultimately dropped out of the points after his penalties were applied.

“We were driving back to Monaco, so I was in the back of the car and had two and a half hours to think about it,” Ricciardo said about his reaction on Twitter while driving home from the race.

“I was bored as well. I certainly feel two was harsh. I get why they needed to do one because otherwise it is like, well, he is off track so everyone is going to complain what are the rules for? Whether I feel it in light of the race or not, the one was slightly inevitable, if I am really honest.

“I just thought, to drop me out of the points I thought was too harsh. With the one I would have already dropped to 10th. Give me one point for trying.

“Nothing against [Pierre] Gasly but he was not in our battle at all, and he kind of steals the points. It is like…I didn’t think that justified it but, it’s all good…I got over it pretty quickly.”

Ricciardo said his biggest issue with the penalty was that it was treated as two separate incidents.

“I know that I was off track so again at some point I really could not argue with that but I would treat it as one incident, not two separate ones,” he explained.

“The Lando one is the one I don’t necessarily agree with. Because if anything it slowed us down and gave everyone else…I don’t think I gained an advantage what I did with Lando.

“The Kimi one you could say sure I went off the track to make a move. But with Lando I don’t think it was like that. If I was in Kimi’s position or if I got passed off the track, then I’d say, hey what is going on.

“I just don’t know why it was treated as two separate incidents. That is all. The rules have to be there, but…

“The problem is, and they [Renault] are going to hate me for saying this, the [Paul Ricard] track does not help,” he added.

“Put gravel, something, there and it automatically stops us. It does stop us. I think I’d still try if there was gravel there.

“But it does already create the penalty for us as opposed to then being handed it after the race. That is why I am not really a fan of the big open tracks.”