Ricciardo 'disgraced' by qualifying exclusion

Daniel Ricciardo says he is disgraced by the steward's decision to expel him from the qualifying classification.

Ricciardo's exclusion came about as a result of an increase in the MGU-K power output during a lap in Q1,  which wasn't an improvement from his previous lap time.

Ricciardo suggested that they should have excluded the lap time rather than the entire session after he qualified in eighth place.

"I had a very restless night's sleep, trying to go through it in my head, why a penalty would be so harsh," Ricciardo told GPToday.net. 

"For me, it happened on one occurrence on one lap. If it was happening the same corner every lap for the same session, I would not complain at all. 

"It's like track limits, you go off and gain an advantage - delete that lap. We didn't even gain an advantage from this yeat they delete the whole session. I was disgraced by that. 

"They're doing some great things on-track like letting us race, but what's the point of not giving penalties on-track but then giving a massive penalty for something not in our control."

Giovinazzi contact 'destroyed' Ricciardo's race

Ricciardo was battling multiple cars as he attempted to recover his, however he suffered a puncture after making contact with Antonio Giovinazzi. 

Ricciardo said the collision with the Alfa Romeo driver "destroyed" his race, but doesn't think either one of them is to blame. 

"The contact with Giovinazzi destroyed our race," he said. "At the time, I didn't feel like it was his fault, didn't feel like it was my fault. It was a bit of an unfortunate incident. I had a bit of wheelspin on the exit which then maybe slid into him.

"I'll watch a replay, but I don't think anyone was trying to have each other over, let's put it that way. Just tough consequence. I guess that's street racing.

"I felt like we were ticking off every box and it was like 'make the most of the first part when everyone is bunched up'.

"And then I felt like we were going to get into some clean air and use the last of the tyres. We were getting close to our pit window at the time with our contact with Giovinazzi."