Daniel Ricciardo admits he felt “responsible” for the disappointed mood at Renault after his incident in Baku.
The Australian had been running in the points but would mess up an attempted overtake on Daniil Kvyat into Turn 3 and head down the escape road.
In a bid to return to the track as quickly as possible, Ricciardo would then reverse into the Toro Rosso which was stranded facing the barrier and took both drivers out of the race.
“I didn’t want to watch it, but by Monday night I watched a replay of it,” he revealed to Crash.net.
“When you are in that position you always feel like it is going to look worse than it felt. Of course, it sucked watching it, but I actually felt a bit better when I saw my onboard.
“I did look in my mirror, I just looked in my right mirror when Dany was on my left side. When I retired and went straight to media, I thought I’d panicked and started reversing straight away and I didn’t even look.”
Having been completely at fault for the loss of a good finish, Ricciardo admits a little trepidation at how Renault would greet him back at the factories.
“I was in Viry on the Monday and even just seeing the people there, I was a bit cautious about how everyone was going to treat me but it felt like they’d already forgiven me and that felt good,” he explained.
“I was in Enstone on Tuesday, so kind of facing everyone straight away was a good cure.”
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Still, that didn’t prevent a sense of guilt for the obvious disappointment within the team, as Renault continue to struggle for results.
“I felt more for the morale of the team. We could have been patting each other on the back but instead, everyone had their head down. I felt responsible for the feeling that we all left the race with. That was what I didn’t want.
“Of course I feel a responsibility to bring this team up in one-way shape or another. And I had an opportunity to do that and I did not.”
The fallout will continue this weekend as the stewards gave Ricciardo a three-place grid drop for the race in Spain.
