There was a stir in Singapore about the fastest lap of Daniel Ricciardo. The VCARB driver’s fastest lap saw him run Lando Norris missed the extra point. At McLaren pointed them to the ties with Red Bull, but according to team boss Laurent Mekies that is complete nonsense.
The McLaren team has long questioned the ties between Visa Cash App RB and Red Bull. Both teams have the same owner, and McLaren is not too happy about that. Since McLaren driver Norris is the biggest title rival of Max Verstappen, questions arose about Ricciardo’s fastest lap. Because the Australian drove the fastest lap, Norris missed out on the extra point. Immediately after the race, McLaren wondered whether Red Bull had asked VCARB about this.
Weird weekend
Visa Cash App RB team principal Laurent Mekies is not buying the allegations. Ricciardo may have raced his last in Singapore, and Mekies told Motorsport.com that this was partly due to the incident: “You have to give the kid credit. He had a crazy weekend. He worked professionally all weekend, in and out of the car. Even though the pressure was getting higher and higher and higher. The kid starts the race from the back, he fought every lap, he did good lap times, but he was not able to overtake. We thought it was the right thing to do, to give him that opportunity in the context of the weekend he had.”
No conspiracy
Mekies can do absolutely nothing with the rumours of a conspiracy. The French team boss is clear: “It is simply that we give the boy a chance in what was a bizarre weekend for him. Give him the chance to set a good time and end the weekend with a god feeling.” Mekies states that this action was not discussed before the race: “Of course not. You always hope for a well-timed Safety Car so that you can compete for the points again. Otherwise you don’t race. That’s why we started on the softs. This is not something you plan before the start. After we saw how hard the race was, how pointless it was for him to keep fighting at the back, we decided that this was the right thing to do.”
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