Daniel Ricciardo says Renault must move on despite disappointment at being excluded from the Japanese Grand Prix.
On Wednesday, the FIA announced their decision to disqualify the Australian and teammate Nico Hulkenberg as the stewards upheld a protest by Racing Point aimed at their brake bias system.
Though unhappy at the decision, Renault opted not to appeal and Ricciardo, as always, tried to look on the positive side of it all.
“I was disappointed because obviously it was a cool race and, actually, I’m still glad I got to do the race because I had a good time doing it,” he told Sky Sports.
“Coming back with eight points was one of the biggest results of the year for us, so, for sure, disappointed and reading the legality of it all and all that, it seemed there was a good chance we should and could have kept it.
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“We’re angry and frustrated, but as a team, we are like ‘screw this, let’s go get these points we lost’, so it’s motivation,” he added.
“Now I’m just watching onboards of my pole lap last year and getting myself excited for this race.”
Ricciardo does admit the regular setbacks do make it hard for the team to gain confidence, particularly in a year where performance has also underwhelmed.
“I do feel this year it’s been tough for us to get momentum, obviously coming in as a team there were pretty high expectations to build on what they had last year,” he commented.
“It hasn’t really been that way so far, and when we do get something going, something like this happens or my penalty in Singapore or whatever. So it’s been hard for us to have a real swing at races because I feel like something always seems to be getting in the way.
“But if we just sit here and say ‘well, poor us’, then we’re not really going to move forward. So I think we’ve got to brush it off. I think that’s the only thing to do.
“If there’s anything, a mistake made that we can learn from, sure we’ll try and learn from it.
“Otherwise, I think [for] pretty much everyone in the paddock, this is the two favourite double-headers of the year. So I think we’ll just use that kind of happiness and positivity to try and get some good results.”