Daniel Ricciardo is calling for cool reflection in his RB Formula One outfit after a first-race blow-up with his teammate Yuki Tsunoda in Bahrain.
The experienced Australian driver was left raging at Tsunoda after a late-race incident in Saturday's season-opening grand prix which prompted him to fume over the radio to his team engineer that the Japanese had been a “f***ing helmet”.
Tensions had boiled over at Red Bull’s junior team RB following a driver position-swap order from the team which left Tsunoda complaining, “are you kidding me?”
After delaying for a lap before giving way to Ricciardo, whose car was on the faster soft tyres, Tsunoda then showed his angry disapproval on the post-race cool-down lap when he sped past the Aussie’s car on the outside, narrowly avoiding a collision.
It prompted Ricciardo to complain: “What the f**k! I’ll save it… he’s a f***ing helmet!”
Later, with tempers cooled, 34-year-old Ricciardo, who’s in his 14th season as an F1 driver compared to Tsunoda’s fourth, still reflected on the 23-year-old’s post-race antics as “immaturity” but said they would talk it through.
“I think it’s a long year. We need to make sure that we’re all good. So we’ll go back, have a meeting. Be very mature about it and look forward to Jeddah (for next week’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix),” Ricciardo told F1TV.
“I’m being very sensible right out but let’s call it immaturity.
“I think he was obviously frustrated with the team orders but let’s be real, this is something we talked about before the race.
“It was very likely I was going to use a soft (tyre) at the end of the race so he knew that there was a chance that I would have a pace advantage at the end and if he gets a call, then it’s going to happen.”
As it turned out, the 13th placed Ricciardo and 14th-placed Tsunoda never looked like challenging for a top-10 spot that would have guaranteed one of them getting among the points.
“Ultimately, I don’t think we were good enough for points,” said Ricciardo.
Tsunoda, for his part, told reporters after the race that he didn't think the two cars were close to making contact.
