Daniel Ricciardo has revealed he had a “productive” chat with Formula 1 Management following his harsh criticism of the coverage following Romain Grosjean’s crash in Bahrain.
Though the Haas driver escaped the fiery accident with only burns on his hands, the Renault driver was “disgusted and disappointed” by the persistent replays which were shown during the red flag period as drivers waited in the pit-lane.
That in itself led some to question Ricciardo’s mentality, with Australian world champion Alan Jones suggesting he should retire if he was so strongly affected by the pictures.
But speaking ahead of the Sakhir GP four days later, the 31-year-old still believed there was too much focus on the crash.
“Once they showed [the crash] once and then we’d obviously seen him jump out and get into the medical car I felt like that was all we really needed to see,” he said via The Race.
“The constant replays, there was a lot, and I felt like that could have waited.
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“I think at the time I said ‘until tomorrow’, but even until after the race because obviously still had a race to do.
“I felt like it was inconsiderate to his family, but also it was a distraction because every time we’d go into the garage and try and find out what was happening the only thing it seemed like was endless replays and trying to get engineers’ attention or the mechanics’ everyone was a little bit, let’s say, spaced out or rattled, which is completely understandable.
“I actually bumped into Romain’s wife, Marion, and she appreciated my comments and I think that’s all the validation I needed.”
Ricciardo also explained that while Grosjean appeared largely fine according to the pictures, further unknown injuries could have been sustained.
“It was 54g or something, the impact, and from my understanding, there could be further complications maybe later that evening that we don’t know about internally,” he added.
“It just felt like it was a bit abused. I didn’t feel it needed to be shown as many times as it did, or at least at that moment. Wait another couple of hours perhaps.
“I know they’ve got to fill the time. I don’t have a suggestion, but I’m sure they could fill it with less flames and something else.”
On the evening of Thursday before last weekend’s race, Ricciardo met with F1’s head of marketing and communications Ellie Norman to voice his concerns.
“I think it was certainly worthwhile hearing them out because I do not want to blast them in the media and then run away from them. I chatted for half an hour with Ellie and she went through a lot of stuff, and I gave my feedback,” he explained.
“There was nothing like confronting, she was very understanding and appreciative and accepted my concerns as well. She didn’t push back, I think she was trying to listen and learn as well, how they could maybe do things differently, but she also talked me through the reasons why they broadcast what they did.
“One thing was… and actually maybe some broadcasters do it… kind of like a bit of a warning to preempt the audience, like there’s going to be some graphic images, and that way if you have younger kids you have a bit of time to maybe pull them away from the TV or something.
“Ross Brawn mentioned there is something like that, or there is a bit of a context in place. It was productive, they didn’t attack me or anything like that!
“It was quite a worthwhile thing, and they deserved for me to hear them out.”