The spotlight was on Visa Cash App RB driver Daniel Ricciardo throughout the Canadian Grand Prix weekend.
Jacques Villeneuve made some interesting comments about Daniel Ricciardo and his position on the grid and the experienced Australian drove like a man with a point to prove.
Speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast, journalist and presenter Natalie Pinkham was discussing the 34-year-old’s race in Montreal.
Ricciardo hasn’t had the strongest season thus far, with teammate Yuki Tsunoda being the faster Visa Cash App RB driver this year.
However, Ricciardo out-qualified Tsunoda on Saturday and when the Japanese driver spun out in the closing stages, Ricciardo brought his car home to score some important points for the team.
However, Pinkham has now shared that one action during the Canadian Grand Prix left Ricciardo baffled.
He simply couldn’t understand why he was handed a penalty for a false start when replays seemed to show he obeyed the rules before a tricky getaway in wet conditions.
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Natalie Pinkham says Daniel Ricciardo was baffled by false start penalty
It seems to be very rare that Formula 1 races start under wet conditions without a safety car leading the way.
Lando Norris admitted before the race when speaking to Sky Sports F1 that despite taking part in more than 100 Grand Prix, he had only started on the intermediate tyres on a handful of occasions.
Every car tiptoed their way into the first corner and somehow all made it through the tricky first few turns, although Sergio Perez’s bad weekend didn’t get much better when he hit Pierre Gasly.
Both RB cars slipped back a few places at the beginning of the race, with Haas’s bold strategy of starting on the wet tyres immediately paying off.
However, they both recovered towards the end of the Grand Prix to reach the top ten before Tsunoda’s unfortunate spin.
What made Ricciardo’s race so impressive was having to deal with a five-second penalty during his pit stop after being found guilty of a false start.
Pinkham has admitted that Ricciardo was baffled by that decision but thankfully it didn’t have a huge impact on his final result.
Daniel Ricciardo has one of his best Grand Prix weekends of the season
Reflecting on Ricciardo’s weekend in Canada, Pinkham said: “I think Jacques [Villeneuve] is completely entitled to his opinion, I think it was a somewhat over-simplistic summary of Daniel’s [Ricciardo] career.
“To say he’s been five years in the sport and struggling throughout isn’t true because he lost his seat at McLaren due to poor performance and then earned it back through AlphaTauri only to break his hand and earn his way back in again.
“Look, as I say, Jacques is entitled to his opinion but it was great to see Daniel come back and quieten his critics in the best possible way which is on the track.
“That qualifying was fantastic, it was disappointing to see both him and Yuki [Tsunoda] lose places at the start, there was obviously some issue there.
“But then ironic that he would then get a penalty for jumping the start and potentially gaining an advantage for doing so which I think still baffles him and pundits around the sport.
“I thought that potentially the wheel moved slightly but he didn’t come out of his box to gain an advantage.”
Daniel Ricciardo fighting for his place on the F1 grid
Even if Ricciardo was left baffled by his penalty in Canada, he’ll be very pleased with his return from the weekend.
He proved in qualifying that he still has electric one-lap pace at certain tracks and he extracted the maximum out of the car in difficult conditions.
Tsunoda’s future with RB was confirmed after qualifying as he signed a one-year contract extension.
It means that Ricciardo’s seat is now the only available place on the grid within the Red Bull group.
He faces competition from Liam Lawson for that role next year, although Ricciardo is still the slight favourite to retain his place at RB.
The post ‘Ironic’: Natalie Pinkham says Daniel Ricciardo was left ‘baffled’ by one decision during the Canadian GP appeared first on F1 Oversteer.