Daniel Ricciardo has compared his turn one setback at the Hungarian Grand Prix to that of an NFL player making their debut in the sport.
In his first race since last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Ricciardo was hit from behind by the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu, who had plummeted through the field after a dreadful getaway from fifth on the grid.
The contact pushed Ricciardo into the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, which then crashed into the team car of Pierre Gasly, putting both out of the race virtually on the spot, and Ricciardo right to the tail of the field.
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At a track known as being one of the most difficult for overtaking on the calendar, Ricciardo would remain stuck at the back of the field for much of the first half of the race.
But from there, a sensational strategy call from inside the cockpit was the catalyst for an incredible final stint that saw him climb back up to 13th at the chequered flag.
Crucially, he finished two spots ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
“It was a welcome back,” Ricciardo said after the race. “It was like your first NFL game, someone’s going to put a big tackle on you just to welcome you. I guess it was a version of that.
“Obviously that was disappointing to be out of position from the start. As soon as I got hit knew I was going to the tail.
“I was immediately disappointed, but my next thought was please don’t have damage. I need to do this race, I need to learn this car, and for myself just keep learning and physically do a race distance.”
Ricciardo said the damage to his AlphaTauri AT04 was “really minor” and made little difference to the performance of the car.
“After that, we made a good race. I knew it was going to be impossible to get back to the points but we still put on a strong showing,” he said.
“I felt good in the car, and that was something that was certainly a question mark having not done it for eight months, especially around here. It’s a tough track.
“Aside for lap one, turn one, it was a good day.”
Ricciardo’s first stop came on lap 18, where he switched from the medium to the hard tyres. He then pitted again on lap 29 for a second set of mediums. He then made the mediums last an incredible 40 laps to come home 13th.
“I knew in dirty air, even with these new cars, this circuit is definitely a hard one to follow,” he said.
“They pitted quite early, and as soon as they did I felt the grip coming back in the tyre and thought, ‘Let’s see what we can do in clear air’. And that was better.
“We pitted relatively early. I think we got put back in traffic and that’s when I was like, ‘Whatever we can do, let’s have a think to give me clear air’.
“Because it’s so hard to pass and we have been a little bit down on top speed, it was just trying to do an ultimate strategy.”
In eight of the ten races this season, Tsunoda had been quicker than Nyck de Vries in both qualifying and the race. It’s the first time all season he has been behind his teammate in both.
The F1 circus resumes at the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend, before the sport enters a mandatory shutdown over the European summer break.
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