Daniel Ricciardo filthy as fairytale turns into Miami nightmare

Daniel Ricciardo will start the Miami Grand Prix from dead last with the Australian left seething on his team’s radio.

Daniel Ricciardo will start the Miami Grand Prix from dead last.

The Australian’s fairytale turned into a nightmare on Sunday morning after earlier finishing the sprint race in P4 to pick up his first championship points of the year.

The fourth-placed finish was Ricciardo’s best race result since 2021.

After a stunning qualifying effort on Saturday (AEST), Ricciardo started fourth and was widely expected to be hunted down by those drivers starting behind him.

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However, he showed incredible class to hold off Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz for more than half the race, earning a thumbs up from the Spaniard as they crossed the line.

His day was turned on its head two hours later when he bombed out spectacularly in the opening qualifying session.

Daniel Ricciardo went wide at Turn 8. Photo: Sky Sports.

Ricciardo finished P18 in Q1, more than 0.2 seconds away from progressing to Q2.

Carrying a three-placed grid penalty, Ricciardo will start P20 for Monday morning’s Miami Grand Prix.

The veteran driver was seething at the end of the session.

It didn’t help that his Visa Cash App RB teammate Yuki Tsunoda made it through to Q3 and qualified 10th.

Max Verstappen left it late to secure pole for the race, finishing 0.14 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Carlos Sainz finished third.

Ricciardo’s final flying lap was compromised early when he missed the apex at Turn 8 and went wide.

“F***. I had no rear,” he said on team radio.

Daniel Ricciardo. Photo by Chris Graythen / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA.

His complaints about the rear of his car were validated by Sky Sports analyst Anthony Davidson.

The English commentator said Ricciardo’s RB looked like a “rally car” without enough traction to hold the rear around corners.

Davidson showed the footage of Ricciardo’s lap and said Ricciardo lost further time when his car started to slide at Turn 17.

Sky Sports commentators also described it as a “rude awakening” for the former Red Bull driver after his earlier sprint race masterclass.

Ricciardo copped it on the chin.

“My first thought was exactly what Lando (Norris) felt in Q3 yesterday,” he told Sky Sports.

“I watched his lap. Obviously he was P1 on the medium and then put the softs on and had no rear. I saw from Turn 1, Turn 2, he was sliding everywhere. I honestly felt the same thing with that second set of softs.

Daniel Ricciardo speaking after qualifying. Photo: Sky Sports.

“The first set was fine we were obviously chipping away at it. We were in a decent spot obviously to progress through. And the second set… we started sliding out of Turn 1 and then it got worse through the lap.

“I don’t think it’s the car. The car’s fine. It was just a set of soft tyres that didn’t feel like they were soft tyres.”

When asked about starting last, he replied: “This is the sport. Obviously I’m frustrated, but it’s not like we got something really wrong.

“Hopefully we understand why. Everything looked fine with that. But, you know what you feel. You know the grip you feel and it simply isn’t the same as that first set. It doesn’t change the fact we’re going to start last.”

Miami GP qualifying result Top 10

1) Max Verstappen, Red Bull

2) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

3) Carlos Sainz, Ferrari

4) Sergio Perez, Red Bull

5) Lando Norris, McLaren

6) Oscar Piastri, McLaren

7) George Russell, Mercedes

8) Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

9) Nico Hulkenberg, Haas

10) Yuki Tsunoda, RB

Verstappen continues historic domination

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had a perfect day at the office, winning the sprint race and topping qualifying.

The reigning world champion and championship leader, who has won four out of five Grand Prix races this season, secured his seventh straight pole position with another dominant drive.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, whose fastest lap was 0.141 seconds behind Verstappen, will start second with his teammate Carlos Sainz in third place and Verstappen’s Red Bull partner Sergio Perez fourth.

Three-time world champion Verstappen has won both the previous Miami Grand Prix races but never from pole and he said he still found qualifying tricky.

“Every single year that we come here, I find it extremely difficult to be very consistent with the car feeling, the tyre feeling over one lap,” he said.

“It’s not the single most enjoyable lap of my career just because of how slippery it is. You are not very confident on the lap but we are on pole and of course that is the most important thing.” Leclerc said it had been hard to manage the tyres, with overheating a problem, but said his performance in the sprint race gave him encouragement.

“That’s where we lost a little bit of time, however the race is long tomorrow, we showed good pace this morning (in the sprint race) and I hope we can put Max under a bit more pressure,” he said.

Sainz underscored just how tricky it had been for drivers to deliver their fastest lap on the course around Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.

“It’s really tricky around here with a new soft. Every lap is a bit of adventure,” he said.

“With the wind you don’t know what will happen. Keeping all that in mind, the laps were not too bad.

“You always finish the lap and think you could have gone so much faster, but it’s almost impossible to put a perfect clean lap around here.”

Lando Norris will start in P5, just ahead of the Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

— with AFP

Originally published as Daniel Ricciardo filthy as fairytale turns into Miami nightmare