Ricciardo reveals Hulkenberg conversation over ‘prick’ concerns

Daniel Ricciardo says he had to make sure he was not being a "prick" when apologising to Nico Hulkenberg after their first lap Italian Grand Prix contact. 

On the opening lap at Monza, Ricciardo squeezed Haas driver Hulkenberg onto the grass at the Ascari chicane, causing the German to fall down the order.

For the incident, Ricciardo was handed penalty points by the stewards and a five-second time penalty, although he then had to serve a 10-second one after a mechanic accidentally touched the RB before the five-seconds elapsed.

He would finish 13th as Hulkenberg was 17th after his own penalty for hitting the sister RB of Yuki Tsunoda, but the Australian was keen to apologise to his 2019 Renault team-mate and find out more about the incident.

"I just wanted to quickly check in and see from his perspective as I felt the hit, but didn't know if it was half a car on the grass or did he drop the outside tyre and that kind of locked up him," Ricciardo told media including RacingNews365.

"I didn't give him enough room, period, so the least I could do was apologise and I was also curious about how bad it was like I knew I was in the wrong, but was it something where he wanted to punch my face in or was it like I just misjudged it by 10 centimetres?

"He said: 'Yeah, you didn't give me enough room', but I also wanted to ask, 'Did I kind of jerk across or did I just progressively move across?'

"Obviously, I like to be aggressive, but I'm not dirty and I wanted to make sure, from his point of view, that I wasn't being a bit of a prick? But I believe it was just the elbows were a little too wide, so I apologised."

Ricciardo's 2025 tweaks

Heading into the race, Monza underwent various changes to the kerbs, including at Ascari, with Ricciardo keen for minor tweaks ahead of the 2025 race.

"It sounds like an excuse, I don't want it to come across as an excuse, but we know it can't change, so it is what it is. I should have left him more room," he said.

 "In the driver's briefing, we talked about some of these edges of the track, why there's not a kerb or something, because even getting on the white line, you flick up dust, and it is tricky. 

"Hopefully next year they can just put maybe a little bit of concrete or a kerb there to not just protect incidents like I had but also for clean laps."