Daniel Ricciardo admitted it was crucial he made the move on Valtteri Bottas at the Safety Car restart as he went on to secure a sixth podium finish of the season at Spa on Sunday.

The Australian was in a lonely race in fifth, following another retirement for his team-mate Max Verstappen, but a penalty for Kimi Raikkonen would promote the Red Bull to fourth before an excellent move on the Mercedes at Les Combes at the restart secured a sixth podium of the year.

The pace he would then show to keep the two Finn's behind until the finish would surprise some, but afterwards the 28-year-old was simply pleased to have taken advantage of the opportunity that arose.

"It's certainly ended well, we seem to find some extra pace on Sunday," he said. "We put ourselves in a position to take advantage of something and capitalise, so I'm really happy, another podium is always good.

"In the first few laps with the Ultrasoft's we were struggling quite a bit, there was a lot of blistering, problems we always have at this circuit with the high speed. We were struggling to really make much progress in the first stint, [but] we put the Supersoft's on and found a good rhythm, we were able to keep a similar lap time to the leaders.”

Commenting on the Bottas overtake, which saw the much-criticised Renault engine in the Red Bull able to out-drag the Mercedes along the Kemmel Straight, Ricciardo knew of the importance of completing one of his now trademark bold manoeuvres as was later proved by the battle at the front. 

"The Safety Car for me opened up an opportunity at the restart with Valtteri and I capitalised on that.  He was on the Soft's, I was on the Ultra's and I knew if we were going to have a podium then it's happening at the restart,” he explained.

"Once his tyres were up to temperature it would have been harder to do something."