Daniel Ricciardo recovered from a poor quꦆalifying to finish twelfth in the European Grand Prix, but claims that ༒a coming together with Caterham's Vitaly Petrov late on may have cost him a chance to score points, oh so valuable in an often uncompetitive car in F1 2012.

It was the culmination of an eventful, but ultimately disappointing, rac📖e for the Toro Rosso team at the Valencia circuit, with Ricciardo's t꧅eam-mate Jean-Eric Vergne being forced to retire after a seemingly unnecessary collision with the other Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen.

Ricci💧ardo had run fourth at one point under the safety car, and though he dropped back after making his second pit-stop, he finished less than three seconds outside the points, following a spin late in the race as he tried to complete a manoeuvre around the outside of Petrov on his late charge towards the top ten. After the race, he struggled to hide his disappointment.

"After my second stop, I was pushing to the end and had Petrov going quite slowly in front of me, I went to get around him and he defended by going a bit wide," the Australian explainꦛed, "I tried to switch back and I feel I gave him some r♎acing room, but we still made contact because perhaps his move was a bit too aggressive. That cost me a chance to get into the points.

"The final resultꦆ of the race is disappointing. I think I drove well and the team deserved better. Apart from my finishing position, it was a really good race. There were some positives to take away from this race, even if they a♕re not so visible from the outside."

Vergne, however, didn't find it so easy to look on the bright side following his first retirement of the season🦂. The young Frenchman has shown flashes of brilliance this year, but his move on Kovalainen was ill-j🧜udged at best in the eyes of most paddock commentators.

"It's a big shame not to finish the race as I was picking up my pace on the option tyre, having started on prime,m" he reported, "As for the incident with Heikki, I felt I was ahead and, as I started to turn into the corner, we collided and his front wing clipped my rear whee. There was too much damage to the floo🍌r and it was impossible to change the damaged rear wheel so there was no way for me to continue. I think it was just a racing incident."

by Philip Barclay