Daniel Ricciardo has revealed he hopes teammate Yuki Tsunoda will 'calm down' following a team order row at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The RB pit wall asked Tsunoda to let Ricciardo by while the duo were following Kevin Magnussen in a battle for 12th place late in the F1 season opener.
Tsunoda was running on Hard tyres having used his only fresh set of Softs during his opening stint, while Ricciardo was equipped with fresh Softs after opting to take the first laps of the race with a used set.
Tsunoda originally questioned the call and voiced his frustration over the radio before moving aside for Ricciardo.
"It was highly likely that [with] me starting on the used Soft, I was going to finish the race on a new Soft and have an attacking last stint,” Ricciardo told media including RacingNews365.
"The call is quite expected. I know, when you're in the race, you're a little bit more emotional and it's a bit more intense.
"But this call came as no surprise. Obviously, every lap counts when you're on this tyre and you're trying to get every little bit of grip out of it.
"You need to react to the team call. We weren’t in a points position yet, so there's really nothing to lose. Just let me go and see if I can do something about it."
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Potential to hand position back
Ricciardo failed to pass Magnussen on the track but the positions were not swapped back before the chequered flag, with Ricciardo and Tsunoda finishing in 13th and 14th respectively.
When asked if there was a possibility to hand the spot back to Tsunoda before crossing the line, Ricciardo said: "[Maybe] if we were in a points position, but in the end we were 13th or 14th.
"I don't know if any driver cares about that [position] but I don’t, so if the team said let him back by before the finish line I would have done it. It means nothing to me unless we're in the points - who cares?
"It's race one of 24. Yes, there was a little bit of a conflict today but I don't want that to set the tone.
"I think we’ll talk about it now in the briefing, honestly, and hopefully, once he's calmed down he can say ‘OK I should have moved.’"
'That's Yuki'
Tsunoda's frustrations over team radio have been a consistent theme during his F1 career so far.
Replays showed that after the Grand Prix had ended, Tsunoda dived down the inside of Ricciardo at Turn 8 before almost colliding with him as they ran towards Turn 9.
Amid Tsunoda's apparent anger, Ricciardo is expecting that the Japanese driver will have no overganging emotions from the debate.
"We know what he's like, during the [heat of the] moment, that’s Yuki,” he said.
"Once we get back to the room, he will be completely fine. I'm OK, I'm thinking long-term, this is a long season so we need to be able to work together.
"I'm not going to come in there with an angry attitude. It's just we have to be very honest and realistic that it should have happened when we caught him."
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