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After a promising qualifying session, Daniel Ricciardo’s weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix ended in disaster as the Australian crashed out on the opening lap of Sunday’s race.
While Max Verstappen cruised to a comfortable victory as Red Bull claimed a one-two finish at Suzuka, the race was anything but straight-forward early on as Ricciardo and Alex Albon crashed out at Turn Three.
The Sky Sports expert commentary team were all in agreement that it was an unfortunate accident, likely prompted by Ricciardo being more occupied by cars to his left — specifically Lance Stroll — and not realising Albon was coming up on his right.
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“I think Ricciardo reacts to Stroll on his lefthand side. That’s unfortunate. It wasn’t Albon’s fault and it wasn’t Ricciardo’s,” Anthony Davidson said in commentary for Sky Sports F1.
“Ricciardo is going for the racing line and three into one doesn’t really go. It’s a racing incident and wrong place, wrong time for Albon.”
“Ricciardo was looking to his left and more concerned about a car coming up to his left, so that’s why he wasn’t aware of Albon,” added Bernie Collins.
It was a cruel setback for Ricciardo, with pressure building on the Australian as Kiwi Liam Lawson looms in the background — both figuratively and literally.
Both drivers were thankfully quick to emerge from their cars unscathed, although there was a lengthy delay to Sunday’s race as crews worked to clear the cars.
When the races restarted it did so using the times from sector one of the race according to the broadcast, with Nico Hulkenberg (12th to 10th) and Esteban Ocon (15th to 13th) able to make ground before the red flag came out.
The top nine, meanwhile, stayed the same and when the race got back underway it was Verstappen reasserting his dominance, quickly moving ahead of teammate Perez by almost one second.
This was despite Verstappen telling reporters before Sunday that there was a “question mark” over his team’s race pace.
“So far I haven’t been happy with my long runs,” said Verstappen after qualifying.
“The pace wasn’t what I would have liked. So there’s a bit of a question mark going into (the race) because looking at the long runs especially Ferrari, they looked very comfortable.”
Verstappen also said McLaren looked “quite decent”, although in Sunday’s race Carlos Sainz reported that Lando Norris was “struggling” with his tyres on Lap 9.
Logan Sargeant crashes out in Japan | 00:50
At that point Norris still led the Ferrari driver in third, with Alonso in fifth and Australia’s Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc trailing close behind.
Davison said in commentary for Sky Sports that Ferrari looked like the “faster race car” and a struggling Norris later pitted on Lap 11, switching to the hard tyre.
Later, in a surprise move, Lewis Hamilton told team radio before even being asked to that he would let teammate George Russell pass him as the pair battled for sixth, going through with his offer on Lap 14.
It came after Piastri pitted from fifth, only to come back out in 12th after finding himself stuck in some traffic in pit lane.
Piastri though was able to quickly work his way back up to ninth while McLaren teammate Norris passed Russell, who had reported a “strange” feeling with his steering.
There were bigger issues for teammate Hamilton though, who was quickly dropping down the grid as he struggled on his hard tyres.
“Change this strategy,” he said over the team radio as he lost places to Sainz and Alonso, with Collins noting the Mercedes driver was growing “very unhappy” as he remained out on the track.
Hamilton finally pitted on Lap 24, six seconds behind Russell, who was having much more success with the one-stop strategy than his teammate.
In fact, Hamilton had to pit again for a set of medium tyres on Lap 40 after Russell did similar a few laps earlier, bringing an end to any suggestions it could be a one-stop race for the Mercedes driver.
There was a late incident involving Russell and Piastri as the pair made contact on Lap 50 down the inside at the final chicane, with stewards making note of it as the Mercedes driver made a last-gasp bid to get past the Australian.
“He (Russell) gave me nowhere to go so I had to cut (the chicane),” Piastri said over team radio.
Chaos after rain wreaks havoc in Japan | 03:01
Piastri was initially able to maintain seventh spot despite briefly going off the track, with Russell just behind him in eighth but that was short-lived.
Russell was able to overtake Piastri after the Australian ran wide going into the chicane on the final lap, with Davison noting that the McLaren driver would be “kicking himself after the mistake”.
Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, became the first Japanese driver to score a point at his home race since 2012 as he finished 10th ahead of Lance Stroll, who complained over team radio that it was “unbelievable” how slow his car was on the straight.
“It’s like a different category,” he said.
Elsewhere, Charles Leclerc – who was a surprise eighth fastest in qualifying – bounced back to finish fourth behind Ferrari teammate Sainz
Sainz overtook his teammate on Lap 46 after Leclerc was informed in the latter stages of the race to focus on racing McLaren’s Norris, who finished in fifth.
Meanwhile, Ricciardo and Albon were not the only drivers who failed to finish with a mechanical issue seeing Zhou Guanyu’s day come to an early end.
JAPANESE GP RESULTS
1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
2. Sergio Perez, Red Bull
3. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
4. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
5. Lando Norris, McLaren
6. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
7. George Russell, Mercedes
8. Oscar Piastri, McLaren
9. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
10. Yuki Tsunoda, RB
11. Nico Hulkenberg, Haas
12. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
13. Kevin Magnussen, Haas
14. Valtteri Bottas, Sauber
15. Esteban Ocon, Alpine
16. Pierre Gasly, Alpine
17. Logan Sargeant, Williams
Zhou Guanyu Sauber —DNF
Daniel Ricciardo RB — DNF
Alex Albon Williams — DNF
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