Ricciardo happy after some frustrating races: "The team deserved this"
F1 News
Things haven't been plain sailing for Renault over recent weeks. Even in qualifying in Japan, Daniel Ricciardo failed to escape from the first qualifying session and Nico Hulkenberg finished in P15 after a hydraulic leak. Three hours later in the race, the French team turned this result into a double-points finish.
Even though Renault scored a double-points finish, they still lost out to McLaren. Carlos Sainz, who looked to be within a chance for a podium place in the early stages of the race, finished fifth to take home more points than Ricciardo and Hulkenberg combined.
Despite this, Ricciardo is really pleased with how the team managed to fight back and suggests it's something which was needed.
“The team deserved this result today. We’ve been on a bit of a frustrating run recently without scoring, so to take seventh today is excellent. We had an issue in qualifying with the rear of the car that the boys fixed, which explained why we were quite far down," Ricciardo said.
"We had good pace in the race and were coming through quite nicely. Starting on the Medium tyre worked to our advantage and we came through the pack with some enjoyable battles. It was nice to execute a good strategy, we pulled through and, in the end, it was a deserved and quite comfortable seventh place.”