Daniel Ricciardo talks about racing behind the experienced Fernando Alonso in Monaco Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo reckons his car did suffer in dirty air behind Fernando Alonso in the 2024 Monaco GP. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda, the RB driver felt that the hard tire was better than the Spanish champion’s medium tire, which is why he could trail him closely.

Finishing 12th in the race, Daniel Ricciardo trailed Alonso for the majority of the race. With a hard tire compound as an advantage, he was able to push the Spanish driver to the finish line and finished four-tenths of a second behind the Aston Martin. With Monaco being a difficult track for overtaking, the red flag denied drivers the opportunity to jump cars or surge through the grid via pitstop strategy.

One of the weaknesses of the RB F1 car has been struggling in dirty air and losing performance while following other cars. With an entire race of 78 laps of trailing other cars closely, Daniel Ricciardo did not seem to lose lap time to the car ahead. He reckoned that the hard tire was an advantage and he kept pushing because his opponent ahead was at a disadvantage on the medium tires.

Asked by Sportskeeda if he struggled behind Alonso in the dirty air, which tends to be one of his car’s weaknesses, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“I definitely felt it perhaps the last ten laps, there wasn’t that much left in the tires. But yeah as I said, even my engineer said like ‘give yourself some room to give your tires a break.' But I don’t know, I just knew if I gave myself room he was going to give himself room. His pace was just going to slow with mine, I mean we were already driving so slow, I didn’t feel like lapping in the 1 minute 25s. So I just said ‘I have a hard, he has a medium, I’ll just push and if anyone loses his tires first, its probably him’.

Asked if he expected it to be difficult chasing Alonso for the majority of the race, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“I mean that another thing, I know what he does and I know that it is Monaco, I know he’s super experienced. I mean I tried to put pressure on him also cause its more fun to try and force someone into a mistake. I mean just to leave a five second gap, thats not fun and I knew he had mediums so I was trying and getting him to use some tyre and try and keep some pressure on. So there were definitely laps where I was enjoying cat and mouse and there were few little nooks. But he’s experienced and around this track you need to make a pretty catastrophic error to leave the door open.”

“I wish I was staring at the back of Fernando last year, because that would have meant it would have been a podium. I think he finished second from memory. Most times you are behind Fernando its not a bad day, but unfortunately this one wasn’t. Look, I am not surprised in terms of, if you don’t qualify in the front or pole here, there is a highly likely chance that you’re race is ebbing dictated by someone else’s pace.”

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Daniel Ricciardo overviews lap 1 incident and the RB starting performance in the Monaco GP

Daniel Ricciardo believes his initial start in the Monaco GP was one of the best of the year, given that they have struggled as a team in that area. However, he felt with the chaos up front there were moments where he had to back off, particularly with the two Aston Martins and the Alpines racing each other.

With a front-row view of the Alpine incident between Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, the 34-year-old driver claimed that the incident was brewing for a whole lap and reminded him of his incident with Max Verstappen in Baku in 2018. At the race in Azerbaijan, the Dutchman and Daniel Ricciardo collided, causing a retirement for both. He believed the Alpine drivers were not going to back down and the team was not going to be happy with the outcome.

Describing the start of the race, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Obviously we did start in front of him, but I think on the starts, the first one was actually one of our best ones of the year, which has been fine. But its the shortest and probably tightest run into turn 1. I actually had a bit of a run on Gasly but the space tightened into one so much, that I had to come out of it and that allowed Stroll to come through with a bit more momentum. He got me there and then the second one he covered the inside and that allowed Fernando room on the outside. Yeah that was that. I had two laps today of clear air, this two were fun, the rest just very patient.”

Talking about the incident between the Alpine drivers, Daniel Ricciardo added:

“It was close, I mean Lance was definitely closer, so I had time to react. But there was wheel touching three times probably before that happened. Honestly it reminded me of Baku 2018, where obviously Max and I, we touched I think twice or three times before the accident."

"Obviously that one brewed in a long shoulder of time, but I could see it happening, where I could feel ok tension is rising very quickly. Sometimes with teammates it sparks even more. When it happened I wasn’t surprised. It felt like none of them wanted to give in and they were I think in a strong armed competition. I know how that one goes, I’m sure the team are not happy.”

Daniel Ricciardo believes that Monaco remains a circuit where the qualifying dictates most of the race outcome. Therefore not being on pole or the front row leaves very little room for improvement. With 2025 talks in the pipeline, the former Monaco GP winner is under pressure to deliver better performances. He has currently scored five points for the team, whereas his teammate Yuki Tsunoda has managed to 19 points for the team. Qualifying performance remains a key area to improve for the eight-time Grand Prix winner, who has been struggling to perform with the limited operating window of his car and specific demands from his peculiar driving style.