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F1 US GP: Ricciardo on Verstappen: My boy’s done it again!

Daniel Ricciardo has jokingly expressed his frustration at losing out on a possible second place finish in the United States Grand Prix because of his team-mate Max Verstappen's retirement.

The Australian ran a strong second early and was in contention to challenge Nico Rosberg for the position to the chequered flag as alternative strategies played out.

However, when a Virtual Safety Car was deployed to clear the stricken sister car of Verstappen on lap 32, it allowed Rosberg to make a clear pit-stop and come back out ahead of Ricciardo. Leaving Ricciardo third, he was irritated to learn it was his team-mate that would ultimately cost him a better result.

"Absolutely sir," he replied when asked if it was 'worse' that the VSC was caused by Verstappen. "When I saw Max out there I thought 'ah, hell. My boy's done it again!' So anyways, that was a devastational [sic] moment but we'll keep soldiering on. We still got some points over Ferrari today so I'm pretty pleased with that."

"I believe after the pit stops we would have had about five seconds on him. And then after the virtual safety car he had close to five seconds on me so that was frustrating, I guess. It just would have been interesting, even if he caught me at the end, just to at least have a fight.

"I think the race, after the virtual safety car, became a bit... not that exciting. I guess without it would have made it a bit spicier at the end. That was that. Unfortunately third was the outcome but it was still nice to be on the podium."

Verstappen - who suffered a gearbox failure - went on to explain he stopped where he did on the instruction of the team so he could be wheeled back behind the barrier. However, the setting required to allow this to happen failed, forcing the crane to be used 

Zdroj: crash.net