Daniel Ricciardo was satisfied to have ended a frustrating run of races with a strong recovery through the field to finish fourth at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Australian had been the biggest victim of the wet qualifying on Saturday, managing only 12th and would fall back to 16th after contact with Marcus Ericsson on the opening lap at the Hungaroring.
One-by-one though, the ‘Honey Badger’ produced a number of his bold overtakes and would capitalise on Valtteri Bottas’ late problems to finish fourth.
“Yeah, it was nice to finish on a high. I feel it has been a few races where I haven’t really been happy so it was nice to get a good one today,” Ricciardo said later.
It almost ended in disaster with two laps to go, however, as the Mercedes nearly wiped out the 29-year-old at Turn 1 as he went around the outside and Valtteri struggled to slow down his damaged car.
“I felt like I did all I could. I gave him enough room but I guess with the damage and he went in pretty hot,” the Red Bull man acknowledged.
“It was definitely over the top, but I wanted to get him back on track as opposed to waiting for a penalty.”
That he would, getting better traction on the exit of Turn 1 at the start of the final lap, although Bottas was later penalised 10 seconds as well for causing the collision.
With a four-week break to look forward to before the action resumes at Spa, Ricciardo has to wait a little longer to start his holidays and will also have some business to take care of ahead of Belgium.
“I will be testing Tuesday and I will escape on Wednesday. Head far away from race cars for a few weeks,” he claimed.
“I honestly still don’t know [about a new contract]. Probably over the break, when everyone is looking for something to talk about, probably then.”
