Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo felt his race was over after his Turn 3 collision with Sebastian Vettel, which was caused by the Australian’s teammate Daniil Kvyat.
The three-time Grand Prix winner struggled for pace on the medium compound tyre and ended up just outside the points in 11th. Ricciardo, though, was quick to dust himself down and accept that the incident was merely an occupational hazard.
“It’s frustrating and a shame to be out of the race more or less from the first lap onwards but I think these things happen with racing. After the start I felt a big hit. I saw Seb come into me but it looked like he got hit as well. We had a lot of damage and had to pit. We thought we’d try the mediums but that wasn’t really working,” he said.
Ultimately, the Red Bull driver’s race was rendered virtually pointless, as he had incurred significant damage, meaning that he was unable to use the race as a test session and gain relevant data from the race.
“Unfortunately the damage was so much that we didn’t really learn anything from today’s race and we don’t know what our pace was.”
The 26-year-old was in a characteristically bullish mood, and looked forward to the first European races of 2016 which would appear to favour the RB12’s strengths, as the layouts at Monaco and, to a lesser extent, the Spanish Grand Prix are expected to mask the Red Bull’s power deficiencies.
“Barcelona and Monaco should be better, so we have a few races to be excited about.”
After coming into the Russian Grand Prix weekend third in the Drivers’ Standings, the Perth-born racer is now seven points behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in fourth place, as a result of the Finn’s podium finish in Sochi.
