Ricciardo played Turkish GP ‘lottery’ and lost

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo said it was a “lottery” out there at the Turkish Grand Prix, and he didn’t have the winning numbers.

In a weekend that was vital for different reasons up and down the grid, whether it was Hamilton’s quest for a seventh World Championship or the fierce battle for P3 in the Constructors’ Championship, involving Renault, Istanbul Park was going to make it as difficult as possible.

Heavy rain led to a jumbled up grid for the race, but Ricciardo certainly struck a good deal with the conditions, putting his R.S.20 P5 on the grid.

But things went horribly wrong at the start as the Aussie tagged his team-mate Esteban Ocon into Turn 1, sending the Frenchman spinning.

And Ricciardo could manage only P10, a single point which certainly did Renault no favours.

“We made a great start today, but I was squashed in between Lewis [Hamilton] and Esteban into Turn 1, so I had nowhere to go and I clipped my team-mate which is the last thing you want to do,” he told the Renault website.

“We lost a couple of positions from the incident and then when we switched to the Intermediate tyres we just couldn’t make them last.

“There were moments during the race when I was told I was one of the fastest out there, then just a few laps later my tyres were completely gone so it was all a bit of a lottery.

“Obviously, a big congratulations to Lewis for wrapping up his seventh Drivers’ Championship and to do it in such a dominant fashion today is very impressive.”

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It's a sublime start for the Racing Points, but Bottas and Ocon both spin off at Turn 1#TurkishGP 🇹🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/YWd92CZKq6

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 15, 2020

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Ocon crossed the line in P11, putting in a good recovery drive after being spun by Ricciardo and then Valtteri Bottas soon after.

“It was a difficult race for us today. I got hit twice at the start and that ended our chances of scoring good points,” he explained.

“I was happy with my start and it was probably my best one of the year. I was third or fourth at Turn 1 and then I was unlucky to spin after Lewis [Hamilton] got close to Daniel, who clipped my rear.

“I then got hit at Turn 9, which punctured my rear tyre and from there it was always going to be hard to recover. We did our best and we move onto the next one. Congratulations to Lewis on the seventh World title.”

Renault have slipped to P5 in the Constructors’ Championship after Racing Point and McLaren both recorded double-points finishes.

Racing Point now hold P3 with 154 points ahead of McLaren on 149. Renault’s tally grew to only 136 and now they must look over their shoulders with Ferrari only six points adrift of them after Sebastian Vettel finished P3 in Turkey ahead of Charles Leclerc in P4.

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