Ricciardo outraged by lack of RB mistake apology

Daniel Ricciardo was furious with RB after what he feels was a botched Hungarian Grand Prix by his team.

The 34-year-old started the race at the Hungaroring in ninth place, but fell back - along with team-mate Yuki Tsunoda - in the early stages to rivals on softer tyres.

The Williams of Alexander Albon and Kevin Magnussen's Haas displaced the RB pair from the top 10, with both settling into proceedings on the medium Pirelli compound.

However, when those on the red-walled rubber came in to pit after six laps, Ricciardo followed suit one lap later, at the behest of his team - a decision the Australian could not understand with hindsight.

It turned out to be a critical error by RB, with Ricciardo unable to make an impression on the race from there, ultimately taking the chequered flag outside the points in P12. To make matters worse, he was further angered by a lack of apology from his team.

"Massively," the eight-time grand prix winner replied to media including RacingNews365 when asked if he was disappointed with his result. "Why they [RB] pitted me when they did at the beginning - we followed the soft [tyre] cars in.

"They've just come in, we have a clear track and we decide to pit behind them and put ourselves in a DRS train - and on the same tyre, all on the hard [compound]. 

"I've had a lot of races, I've had a lot of frustrating ones, but that's up there, because we had the pace...

"Honestly, I was expecting more. On the in lap, I was waiting for: 'sorry, we fucked up.' And I didn't get it. So that made me even more angry."

Ricciardo longs for Tsunoda's race

Ricciardo's team-mate faired better, on what the Australian felt was the strategy he also should have been on.

Tsunoda was not brought in to stop until lap 29 of the 70-lap race, by which point Ricciardo had already pitted for the second time.

The Japanese driver was able to hold onto a points-paying position, coming home in ninth - where his team-mate started the grand prix.

"We basically gave Yuki [Tsunoda] the race that we had in front of us, and we both could have done that, and we didn't," he said.

"I didn't have time," he responded when it was queried whether he questioned the call by RB. "It's a late call: 'box box box' and you pit. But honestly, as soon as I'm pulling in the pits, I'm questioning, but you can't - you get called in Turn 13 and you have to react. 

"We talk about strategies in that, but two cars jumped us at the start with a soft tyre. That's fine. Let them go. 

"They pit and we follow them, to then just be on their strategy. We would have had clear air and a chance to - I think, from what I understand - do Yuki's race."