Daniel Ricciardo has revealed damage to his Red Bull front wing was responsible for the drop-off in pace that resulted in him losing a podium place at the French GP.
The Australian was running comfortably in third but after his pit-stop would drop back from his teammate Max Verstappen rapidly, falling into the clutches of Kimi Raikkonen on newer, faster tyres, with the Finn making a move into the Mistral chicane.
Speaking after the race, Ricciardo, who was already unhappy with his car after qualifying, admitted there was nothing he could do.
“The boys said the front left part of the wing was damaged,” he said. “They think it happened about two laps before the pit stop because I started, all of a sudden, to get quite a lot of understeer.
“I don’t know if it was a failure or we hit some debris but that broke, so then already with the soft tyre, we were struggling when we left the pits and then I think a few laps later the team said the right part broke, so both parts identically seemed to break.
“Because of that we had a lot less downforce and understeering so with Kimi, he was always going to catch us with that pace,” Ricciardo added. “But as I said, we were a wounded car from just before the first pit stop.”
As for teammate Max Verstappen, he scored what was his third podium in four races at Paul Ricard, benefiting from the first lap collision between Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas to inherit second.
“It was good,” he commented. “I tried to follow Lewis. He was controlling the pace.
“I didn’t have to work very hard for it but it’s good to be in the podium.”
