Daniel Ricciardo is remaining optimistic with his car’s ‘2014 potential’ in future races after a puncture prevented any hopes of the Red Bull driver claiming his first podium of the season in China.
The Australian rolled back the years to the 2014 style in which he won three races to have a brilliant start to the race from the front row of the grid, passing Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg for the lead from the start. However, this was before suffering a puncture on the fourth lap, with the safety car hampering him further after coming out from lap five before the action got back underway on lap 10.
“I think there were some incidents on the first lap and I remember on my second lap there was a little bit of debris here and there,” Ricciardo said. “But it didn’t seem like there was one big bit which I caught so it was still unexpected when I was coming through Turn 11 and 12 and was feeling the rear start to slide so I just came on the radio straight away to let them know the tyres were gone.
“The puncture became noticeable when I got on the straight as I could feel the car start to wobble and then my tyre went. Then the safety car put us even further back so that was like a double whammy, which felt like getting punched in the stomach by a heavyweight.”
Despite being knocked down, the Australian had a brilliant second half of the race to recover and make some decent overtakes past the likes of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to claim a third fourth-place finish of the season.
This keeps him in a superb third place in the Drivers’ Championship, only three points behind Hamilton and puts him as the best non-Mercedes driver in the standings.
“But in the end the second part of the race I drove probably one of the best races of my life,” Ricciardo continued. “The package is really promising for sure. Right now, [after] three races, in every weekend we’ve shown our strength at some point and it’s been a strength we didn’t think we’d have this early in the season, so it definitely feels more like 2014 when we had potential.
“I felt like I would have sprayed champagne today and part of me is smiling because I am optimistic that will happen this year so that’s a really good feeling and I’ll keep fighting.”
