Ricciardo: I’m not surprised Grosjean picked up a penalty

Daniel Ricciardo’s Monaco Grand Prix ended on lap 62 when Romain Grosjean ran into the back of his Toro Rosso as the pair fought for 13th position. For Daniel it was a disappointing end to an unsatisfactory weekend…

I came here at the beginning of last week really looking forward to the Monaco Grand Prix but now, frankly, I’m happy this one’s over. I’m keen to get to Canada and hopefully have a much better weekend.

The impact from the Grosjean crash was pretty hard but the car did its job and I was able to walk away, though the damage to the rear-end was pretty extensive. The chassis should be OK but it was a late night at the track for the guys in the garage sorting it all out.

For myself it was a trip to see the stewards’. I’m not surprised Romain picked up a penalty: we were in the stewards’ office together and, to be honest, I didn’t need to say much. They had the data and once I saw the video, it was pretty much what I thought it had been. Tom Kristensen [driver steward, eight times Le Mans winner] was there and he’s experienced enough to understand that type of collision.

Sometimes when things like this happen, you want to blow off steam but by that point I really couldn’t be bothered shouting and screaming at Grosjean. It was a disappointing end to a deeply unsatisfying weekend and I didn’t want to waste the energy yelling “screw you, what the hell were you thinking?” I just said “you’re an idiot”, and that was it.

If there’s a bright side, it’s that it didn’t cost me any points. It’s a funny sort of positive to take away but I’d have felt a lot worse if I’d been in the top ten at that stage.

It’d be nice to see the chequered flag in Monaco but at least I got 62 laps. Obviously the race was a stop-start affair with the two safety car periods and the red flag restart. The advantage of that was it kept you in touch with the leaders and dangled the prospect of getting something out of the race in front of you.

Those periods behind the safety car really added some spice because the restarts were very difficult. The prime tyre was cooling down a lot when you weren’t circulating at full speed, and keeping the front tyres and brakes warm was a real struggle, so when the safety car peeled off the car could be a real handful – which is always interesting.

But even under those conditions, making a pass in Monaco is near-impossible. If the guy in front is half-smart, he’s going to defend his line when you’re close. We’re not racing against too many muppets and those guys are aware of when and where you’re going to attack, and they defend, so it tends to be a race of follow-the-leader.

The next race won’t be like this. The DRS will be effective and there will be plenty of passing on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. I’ve got a couple of days in England and a simulator session now but I’m off to Canada early to get out in the wild for a few days before heading to Montreal.