If he had not dropped out, Ricciardo would never have been able to get into the points because he had to go back in for new tires, while everyone else had already gone in and then he would have ended up at the back.
Let's hope Miami will be much better for the two RB's.

That is a bit misleading about Yuki matching Dan as from lap 1-9 Ricciardo was stuck behind Gasly with Yuki behind Dan. After that Yuki pitted for new medium tyres. Yet Dan was .5 quicker than Yuki on lap 14 with 13 lap old mediums compared to Yukis 5 lap old mediums. Lap 16 Ricciardo on 2 lap old mediums pulls a 1.6 sec lap quicker than Yuki on 8 lap old mediums. Lap 18 1.3 secs quicker than Yuki. Lap 19 Dan 1.1 sec quicker and now in DRS. He then passes Yuki on lap 20 and then pulls a 1.6 gap on Yuki and is within DRS .2 of a sec behind Lewis by the time the VSC comes out for Bottas on lap 21.

All this is clear on the live timing. Dan was rapid as he mentioned and quicker than Yuki.

Wouter wrote: ↑

25 Apr 2024, 12:14

If he had not dropped out, Ricciardo would never have been able to get into the points because he had to go back in for new tires, while everyone else had already gone in and then he would have ended up at the back.
Let's hope Miami will be much better for the two RB's.

Honestly, I think in some way the Stroll incident masked what was a definite strategic blunder by the team. Even without damage, I would guess that Hulk and probably Ocon and Albon would have gotten past Ricciardo in the laps after the SC. If the race had played out clean for both cars following the SC (even without damage) I think we would be looking at a repeat of Bahrain, where the lead driver on the weekend gets beaten by the other due to poor strategy.

They've struggled with strategy for years; I remember Gasly at Monaco '22 when he should have easily been in Q2 or Q3 but they messed up the tire strategy. Sadly, they have a bit of a history with this. At least they can't really do worse than P7 in the standings given Williams has only one car, and the other two teams below Haas produce a comedy of errors each weekend. And I doubt Haas will out-develop them.