RB’s hopes of a factors end in Shanghai had been dashed inside a dramatic few moments in Sunday’s race after Ricciardo was hit from behind by Lance Stroll behind the protection automobile, whereas Tsunoda was concerned in a race-ending conflict with Kevin Magnussen on the restart.
Neither driver was in a position to end the race, and RB staff principal Laurent Mekies felt that each of the incidents towards his drivers might simply have been prevented by their rivals, who had been subsequently given penalties for his or her half within the crashes.
Requested by Autosport about whether or not the accidents had been clumsy or a consequence of the frenetic midfield struggle, Mekies stated: “I do not know actually, however I feel each seemed pointless.
“It is not like these the place you see the way it’s at all times going to finish up in a crash. No, each seemed fairly pointless. So I want to hope that they’re one-offs in an in any other case intense battle.”
Mekies felt the incidents had robbed his squad of one other points-scoring end, particularly as Ricciardo had produced what up till his race exit seemed like being his finest weekend of the season to date.
“It is a large alternative misplaced,” added Mekies. “We obtained each our automobiles taken out by rivals in a single lap, so clearly it is a large missed alternative.
“We really feel we had been combating for that one level within the group with the standard guys, and it could have been a pleasant and tight battle.
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Crew VCARB 01
Photograph by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“Simply earlier than the protection automobile, Daniel was successfully attacking Lewis [Hamilton]. So you already know, we had been on a powerful tempo and we had the correct tyres. We really feel it might have been a good battle with Nico [Hulkenberg] for that place.
“However it’s what it’s. It is racing. It did not go our approach. However what’s reassuring is A, we had the tempo right here once more to struggle for that time, despite the fact that we began a bit on the again foot on Friday. However definitely, the race tempo was there.
“And B, it’s good to see Daniel acting at this stage, he has been making good steps ahead within the background.”
Ricciardo spoke out towards Stroll after the race for the pointless approach the Aston Martin driver had run into the again of him, whereas Tsunoda expressed his annoyance on the method by which Magnussen had hit him.
“I feel I’m fairly pissed off how I ended up, particularly as I gave area to him quite a bit and it simply ended up a DNF,” stated the Japanese. “So yeah, it is fairly irritating. I’m very aggravated.”
Watch: F1 2024 Chinese language Grand Prix Evaluate – Verstappen dominates