2024 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix Highlights

Visa Cash App RB endured their most challenging day of the season, with Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda failing to finish the 2024 Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Hass driver Kevin Magnussen hit Tsunoda at the restart after the first Safety Car period on Lap 27, which put the Japanese driver out of the race and forced the second Safety Car deployment, whilst Ricciardo was also forced out after being hit on Lap 33.

Daniel Ricciardo

We started to make up a lot of ground in the stint before the Safety Car, but during the restart, I got a pretty big hit, and the car was damaged. We decided to retire because I wasn’t really driving an F1 car. It’s very frustrating. I watched his onboard and it looked like he wasn’t even looking at me, it seemed that his helmet was looking at the apex. We’ll never know what could have happened later in the race, but I think we were looking in a good place. Getting ruined by someone else makes me frustrated, and this is where the disappointment comes in because today, we had an opportunity, and we missed it. I think there’s a lot of disappointment for everyone in the team. When I returned to the garage, I saw the mechanics looking at the damage, and they felt as heartbroken as I was. I think we definitely had a better weekend from a pace point of view, and I think the team could feel some momentum and shift to the season. We go onto Miami, and we’ll just try to keep working on that.

Yuki Tsunoda

It’s unfortunate and frustrating how it ended up today. I was happy with how I progressed in the race until my contact with Magnussen. After the Safety Car, the start was good, and I gained five positions, so I feel I maximised what I could do, but the pace itself didn’t improve as much as we wanted. We’ve been sliding more than other cars, and the team has been pushing hard and helping me sort it out, but overall, this week, we weren’t able to show our proper strong performance, and that’s a shame. We’ll look into why back in Faenza, and I know as a team, we’ll come back stronger in Miami. It’s also a shame that Daniel had to retire because he had a good pace in this race, so as a team, it’s frustrating that neither car finished the race and we couldn’t score points.

Laurent Mekies – Team Principal

It’s a disappointing Sunday for us with both cars taken out of the race in separate incidents, which our drivers could do nothing about. It’s painful, but we have no choice but to accept it and move on. On a positive note, and even if the weekend had started on the slow side, everyone has been working very hard to recover enough pace to be in the fight for P10 again. Daniel produced a powerful drive all weekend, especially today, battling with Lewis Hamilton just before the Safety Car came out. It was a trickier weekend for Yuki. It’s always going to be difficult to drive for the first time here during a sprint weekend, but he kept fighting hard and drove a good race today, where he made up a lot of positions. We will regroup with Daniel, Yuki, and the team in Faenza and Bicester to analyse the weekend together and come back stronger in Miami for another ultra-tight battle – and, hopefully, a less frustrating Sunday!

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