Ricciardo on teammate retirement: "To be honest I prefer not to know"
F1 News
Daniel Ricciardo has admitted he doesn’t want to know mid-race if his teammate retires so he can focus on his own race after the Renault team suffered four retirements out of a possible six this season.
Ricciardo himself took until China to secure his first finish for his new team, after retiring in Bahrain and his home Grand Prix of Australia, he recorded a seventh-place finish in China. Meanwhile, his teammate Nico Hulkenberg secured a very respectable P7 in Australia but has since failed to finish a race.
A stand out retirement for the pair was in Bahrain where they both exited the race on the same lap and corner.
Ricciardo admitted he wasn’t 100% sure if his German teammate had retired in China but insisted he liked it that way.
“I didn’t know, I suspected because I didn’t see his name on the scoreboard and at one point I stopped seeing him in my mirrors and I felt it was too early for his pit stop,” Ricciardo said in an interview on racefans.
“So I did suspect.
“But to be honest I prefer not to know, just focus on my race.
“Obviously now I know, [there’s] still some work to do reliability-wise.