Daniel Ricciardo said he never expected to be in contention for victory in Baku after taking a shock fifth career win from tenth place on the grid.

The Australian, who suffered a crash in qualifying, struggled to make up ground in the opening laps and, to his dismay, was forced to pit early due to debris getting lodged in his brake ducts.

With drivers ahead having their own incidents, Ricciardo gradually made his way through the pack and was fifth when the race was red-flagged.

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel were involved in an incident that resulted in the latter being handed a ten-second stop and go penalty, while Hamilton was forced to pit for safety reasons when his headrest became loose.

This propelled Ricciardo into first, where he would stay until the chequered flag, taking Red Bull’s first win of the season.

“It was a crazy race, we knew the podium was a chance after the restart but then we heard the problems with Lewis and Seb, it was just a crazy race,” he said.

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“I made an unplanned pit stop at the beginning, after a few laps we had some debris in the brakes so hard to stop and clean it, we dropped back to 17th.

“Did I think then I’d win then? Absolutely not, I would have put all my money on it that this was very unlikely.

“This is the race we expected last year with all the Safety Car and all the chaos and we got it this year. I was honestly speechless after the race, on the cool down lap I was just giggling like a little schoolboy.”

The 27-year old, celebrating his first victory since Malaysia 2016, said staying out of the chaos was the key.

“Obviously yesterday I was disappointed with the mistake but I guess you’ve got to make these [errors] to try and fight for that last little bit,” he said.

“I knew today would be a different outcome, I said yesterday we had to stay out of trouble and it certainly paid off today. Big thanks to Red Bull, nice to get one car home and on the top step.”