As competitors readied themselves for the race reshuffle on the 27th lap, a sudden lock-up from Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin into the hairpin triggered a domino effect. The sequence had cars falling into an abrupt halt right behind him.
Buried several ranks behind Alonso, Stroll, his teammate, collided into RB‘s Ricciardo. The impact lifted Ricciardo’s vehicle and the subsequent damage was profound enough to sideline both cars from the race.
Stroll initially attributed the jumbled braking to the driver who inadvertently caused the disruption. Little did he know, it was Alonso who sparked the sequence.
The FIA race stewards saw the situation in a different light and slapped Stroll with a 10-second time penalty. The Canadian also received two penalty points, reaching a 12-month total of seven.
Ricciardo, on the verge of scoring his season’s first points in 2024, was seething with rage. From his perspective, Stroll was too negligent about the circumstances leading to the incident. “Maybe in an hour, when he sees it, he might take some accountability. But if he doesn’t, I can’t help him, nor can anyone here,” Ricciardo vented, clearly upset by the avoidable mishap.
The Australian driver expressed his frustration further, “It’s so irritating. Granted, racing incidents happen, but behind a safety car? That’s a total non-starter!” He then criticized Stroll for not paying attention, “Looking at the onboard, you can see he’s not even watching me but eying the apex of Turn 14. Once he looks back, BAM! We’ve already collided!”
Ricciardo’s frustration was palpable, “I don’t know what he’s doing, where his head is. In that situation, he only had to focus on me, but he clearly didn’t. Let’s see what he says to the media.”
Ricciardo was further infuriated upon hearing Stroll’s comments on the radio blaming him for the crash, “I was beginning to calm down until I heard what Lance had to say about the incident. So now, all of a sudden, I am the idiot and it was my fault. Unbelievable!”
Nevertheless, Stroll later clarified that his disparaging comments weren’t exclusively directed to Ricciardo, “I don’t think it was him. I only hit him because he was the one in front of me when everyone started to brake abruptly.”
The official verdict from the stewards stated, “Car 18 (Stroll) should have been more mindful of the leading car, especially Car 3 (Ricciardo), and braked accordingly. His failure to do so resulted in the collision. Thus, Car 18 was predominantly at fault for the ensuing accident that led to Car 3’s premature exit from the race.”