Daniel Ricciardo not hiding frustration after loss in Monaco

Daniel Ricciardo found it hard to hide his disappointment after a delay in his pit stop cost him victory in Monaco.

The Australian was set to emerged from the pits in the lead, but the right tires were not ready on time, and the stop dragged out to 13 seconds. He then spent the rest of the race behind Lewis Hamilton. The pit problem came after a strategy call in Barcelona worked against him and for his teammate Max Verstappen.

“Two races in a row, two races in a row,” he said. “That’s all I can say. We were quick in the wet, we had a comfortable lead, pitted for inters, got stuck behind Lewis and we just effectively put ourselves in a race we didn’t need to be into. Then I got called into the pits for the slicks and the tires weren’t ready.

“I didn't make the late call. I got to the pits and everyone’s running around like headless ‘chooks’ [chickens]. Massively, massively disappointed. I don’t like being up here being miserable, because I got a podium in Formula One, so it should be a good day, but when it happens two weekends in a row, it’s hard to take.

“We had good pace but, you know what it’s like around here. You get behind someone and you lose track position and pace is irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter what you’ve done. I tried to push on Lewis a bit and tried to keep pressure on the whole race. But then the end, obviously, sitting behind him, trying to push, killed the tires a bit. That was all.”

The stewards investigated an incident involving Hamilton – when the Mercedes driver went over the chicane – but no action was taken.

“I didn’t make a move into the chicane because Lewis defended – but I forced him into defense and by doing so he had a mistake and cut across the chicane, so I came on the radio and said, 'What’s going to happen here?'. Because he made a mistake and then stayed in the lead.

“Obviously it was a chance to maybe get the lead for me. So yeah, sure, I questioned it. If he was on his own and made the mistake, fair enough, but obviously he made the mistake through defense and through the battle, so yeah, I’m not sure if they investigated it or not.”

Ricciardo admitted that he has to clear his head in the coming days.

“I don’t know to be honest. I think I took Barcelona on the chin and then took it well, but two in a row now, and it’s not like we’re in Mercedes’ position, we’re not able to win a race, so to have an opportunity to lead two races in a row and especially here in Monaco.

“I put it on the front and you wake up and you see thunderstorms and it’s like, 'OK, there’s a few curved balls coming my way today,' but I felt I dealt with them as well as I could have and had the pace in the wet at the beginning and again I thought I was controlling everything I had to.

“Obviously a big part of it is relying on the team and the strategy but yeah, to get it wrong twice now it definitely hurts. I’m not sure where to go from here, what to do. Obviously they’ve got to understand what’s going on and learn from it but this win I’ll never get back, that’s a fact.”