The 2024 Chinese Grand Prix was a race full of incidents for several reasons. It all started with the wet qualifying on Friday, which brought chaos to the weekend. The chaos continued during the race when two drivers collided even before the restart with the safety car. After 56 laps, in the cooling room, a shocking and bizarre incident occurred between the two drivers.
During the smooth running of the Chinese Grand Prix, everything changed when a car stopped on the track. This resulted in yellow flags and the deployment of the safety car. However, this caused the pack to bunch up, and Lance Stroll collided his AMR24 into the rear of Daniel Ricciardo’s VCARB 01 at turn 14.
The discussions in the cooling room were filled with reactions to Stroll’s crash into Daniel. Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and another driver closely analyzed the collision. The Mexican driver looked puzzled, while Norris and Verstappen were shocked, commenting “no way” as they watched the incident in disbelief.
After being hit by Stroll, Ricciardo’s car suffered damage to its diffuser, forcing him to retire from the race. This incident created tension between Ricciardo and Stroll, with the Australian driver blaming Stroll for the irresponsible accident.
Ricciardo shared his perspective on the crash with the Aston Martin driver. He explained that everyone was following the leader and waiting for the signal to accelerate to the maximum. However, Stroll unexpectedly hit him, causing significant damage to his car. After reviewing the onboard footage, Ricciardo concluded that Stroll was not paying attention to the distance between their cars, attributing it to a lack of judgment on Stroll’s part.
The stewards agreed with Ricciardo’s assessment and penalized Stroll with a 10-second penalty for the incident. This penalty took Stroll out of contention for points, and he ended up finishing in 15th place. On the other hand, Ricciardo’s teammate secured seventh place and set the fastest lap of the race, further extending his lead in the team’s internal battle.
