Following a startling late-race altercation with colleague Yuki Tsunoda at the Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo criticized his “immaturity.”
Tsunoda passed Ricciardo on the cooldown lap, seemingly displeased with the RB team’s orders given late in the race.
2024 Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix: First Round Results
Tsunoda lost his cool and left the usually composed Ricciardo in a rage, diving down the inside of Turn 8.
“What the f***,” Ricciardo fumed over his team radio.
“I’ll hold onto it. He is a f****** mask.
Later, Ricciardo was questioned over the strange occurrence.
“I’m not sure,” he said, perplexed.
“I tried to maintain my composure when I went on the radio. A small amount of immaturity, if you will.
Let’s call it immaturity, yet right now I’m acting incredibly mature.
It’s clear that he finds the team commands call frustrating.
But let’s face it—we discussed this topic before to the race. I was probably planning to utilize a soft in the last stages of the race.
He therefore understood that, should he receive the call, there was a possibility that I might finish ahead of schedule.
“At least give us the best opportunity to get at least one car in the points; he’s not giving me points, and we’re fighting for 13th.”
Rival team managers criticized the RBs’ relationship with Red Bull going into the Bahrain Grand Prix, which marked the start of the season.
However, following a subpar qualifying round, the excitement surrounding the relaunched team subsided before Ricciardo placed 13th and Tsunoda finished 14th in the grand prix.
The premise of their season revolves around the possibility of a vacancy at Red Bull in 2025 if they decide to part ways with Sergio Perez.
Since they started working together midway through the previous season, Ricciardo and Tsunoda had not had a major altercation until the Bahrain Grand Prix finale.
“We need to make sure we’re all good after a long year, so we’ll go back, have a meeting, and be very mature about it,” Ricciardo thought to himself. “We’re looking forward to Jeddah.”
Next weekend, Formula One returns to Saudi Arabia.