Daniel Ricciardo revealed a comeback to finish fourth even exceeded the loftiest of expectations of Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko at the Japanese GP on Sunday.
After what was the most frustrating moment of the Australian’s year, at least by his reaction, the ‘Honey Badger’ mode was fully engaged as he made his way up from 15th on the grid to run fifth within the first 15 laps.
Then his pace in clear air allowed him to pass Kimi Raikkonen using the overcut at the pit-stop before pulling away from the Ferrari and following his teammate Max Verstappen to the checkered flag.
“Yeah, it is a good result, obviously all things considered,” Ricciardo said. “Where I started, I honestly didn’t know where I was going to come today.”
Given how difficult overtaking traditionally is at Suzuka, the race was action packed with moves into the chicane, Turn 1 and at Spoon and Ricciardo made up a decent percentage of the total with his comeback.
“I knew I was going to pass a few cars but even Helmut said on the grid that fourth today was probably optimistic so do what you can kind of thing,” he added.
“If we ever have a grid penalty or start at the back then fourth is the realistic kind of target, but even he thought that was out of reach today.
“To get up to P4 was cool, I was happy.”
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There was some concern over what Ricciardo described as a “knock” from his gearbox as he made his way through the Esses but the issue didn’t turn out to be critical to his race.
“When I was taking sixth gear, upshifting for Turn 3, I would get a big hesitation and like a kick,” the 29-year-old explained.
“It didn’t sound nice. Whether it was gearbox or what, it didn’t sound good and it felt quite harsh so I was just asking whether I should keep doing it or not.
“It was random, it wasn’t happening all the time, so sometimes I got away with it and sometimes not. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing any damage.”