'A good day': Ricciardo buoyant after Budapest battle from the back
Monday, 24 July 2023
Daniel Ricciardo dug in and showed his determination and fitness in his comeback race with AlphaTauri, recovering from last on lap one to finish 13th in Hungary.
Daniel Ricciardo started and finished 13th in his first race back in F1 with Scuderia AlphaTauri in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, the Australian happy with his perseverance and fitness after having to battle from the back of the field.
Ricciardo made a reasonable start from the seventh row to be on the outside of the tightening Turn 1 at the Hungaroring, but was harpooned by Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu, the Chinese driver overshooting his braking point as he attempted to recover from making a poor start from fifth on the grid.
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Alpine duo Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon suffered race-ending damage as they clashed with one another in the resultant chaos, with Ricciardo fearing he'd be joining them on the sidelines not even one lap into his comeback drive with the team he competed for in 2012-13 under the guise of Scuderia Toro Rosso.
"As soon as I got hit, I knew I was going to go to the tail of the field, but then the next thought was 'please, let's not have damage – I need to do this race, I need to learn the car'," Ricciardo said.
"We're a team that's really needing everything to go well to get points. I knew from then it was pretty much impossible to get back into the top 10, but I was glad the car was not damaged and I could continue and learn about it. Being out on lap one would have been the worst possible outcome – we needed laps, so in the end I'm happy with the race I did."
Ricciardo fell to 18th after lap one, but chipped away at the rest of his race and used a marathon 40-lap stint on the medium-compound Pirelli rubber to end up where he started after 70 laps, finishing two places ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda after out-qualifying the Japanese driver by 0.013secs to make Q2 on Saturday.
Given his limited preparation – Ricciardo was only confirmed as taking over from Nyck De Vries at AlphaTauri 11 days before the Budapest round and hadn't raced since last year's season-finale in Abu Dhabi – the 34-year-old was pleased to hold up physically at one of the year's hottest races on a twisting track that offers little respite for the drivers.
"This race is always one of the most physical, let alone after not doing this for eight months and getting right into a race stint," he said.
"I thought that after 30 laps or so I was going to be singing pretty loudly for a breath of fresh air, but I actually felt really good in the car and physically felt good at the end of the race, so that was a positive.
"That was something that was certainly a question-mark, not doing it for eight months. So other than lap one turn one, it was a good day.
Daniel's Hungarian Grand Prix by the numbers
- Qualified: 13th
- Race: 13th
- Pit stops/tyres: Lap 18 (medium/hard), Lap 29 (hard/medium)
- Fastest lap: 1min 23.934secs (19th), lap 67
- Points this event: 0
- Points this season: 0 (21st in world championship)
