Australian Formula One star Daniel Ricciardo had steam coming out of his ears after having his China Grand Prix race derailed by Lance Stroll.
Ricciardo was sitting nicely in the top 10 near the end of what had been a successful weekend when the Aston Martin of Stroll rear-ended him at turn 14.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Daniel Ricciardo fuming after collision with Lance Stroll.
Stream Supercars and more motorsport action live and free on 7plus
The race was about to come out of safety car conditions when Stroll failed to react in time to a slight mistake from Fernando Alonso heading into the hairpin.
Alonso’s error caused the entire field to bunch up behind him, but chaos was almost avoided when nearly every driver narrowly missed the car in front of them — except Stroll, who cannoned into the back of Ricciardo.
Stroll’s front end lifted Ricciardo’s rear right up into the air before it thudded back onto the track.
Ricciardo tried to soldier on with the damage but was ultimately retired a few laps later.
The fuming Aussie star stormed into the back of the team garage before he was asked about his perspective of the incident post-race.
“It’s a restart, you know; we don’t know what the leader is going to do, so you have to be as vigilant as ever and be prepared for any situation,” he said.
“I could see it was bunching up into the hairpin so obviously everyone is backing up, but then how hard he has hit me and basically put half his car under mine, it wasn’t small like a judgement error, he was miles off.
“For that, for me there’s obviously no excuse. I think for me what’s frustrating is I watched his onboard and he’s not even looking at me.
“You can see his helmet and he’s looking at the apex of the corner so I don’t know why he’s not looking at the car in front … unless his eyes are doing something funny.
“But it looked like he wasn’t looking at me and I think it shows with how hard he hit me that he was clearly focused on something else.”
Angry enough already at what happened, Ricciardo saw red when he found out that Stroll had blamed the crash on him.
“This idiot just slammed on the brake,” Stroll had said on his team radio.
A seething Ricciardo didn’t mince his words in response: “I’d slowly started to calm down and then I was told what Lance thinks of the incident.
“And apparently I’m an idiot. And it was my fault. So, that made my blood boil. Because it’s clear as day — and it’s also behind a safety car.
“The only thing you’ve got to do is watch the car in front, we can’t predict what the leader is going to do. We can’t assume that we’re going to go in turn 14. The race doesn’t start until the control line.
“I’m doing my best not to say what I want to say. But f*** that guy — and I’m being nice still.
“But if that’s what he thinks, I’m like… yeah.”
Forcing himself to see the positives from an otherwise promising weekend, Ricciardo tried to remain optimistic.
“I think that’s where right now it’s even more disappointing for us as a team, in the garage, I think everyone feels like it’s kind of another blow to the start of the season,” he said.
“But I think in 48 hours from now when this disappointment starts to fade, we’ll look back on a positive weekend.”
Ricciardo, who has yet to gain a point in five races and has now retired in his past two, had hoped to seize some momentum in China after out-qualifying team mate Yuki Tsunoda.
The Australian, who started the season as a candidate to return to the main Red Bull team alongside triple champion Max Verstappen, is under some pressure after Tsunoda earned points in Australia and Japan.
To add to Ricciardo’s unhappiness, stewards gave him two penalty points and a three-place grid drop for the next race in Miami after he overtook Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas under safety car conditions.