Daniel Ricciardo was left to rue a gearbox problem which prevented him from putting up a stronger fight to Lewis Hamilton, as the Red Bull driver finished second in Singapore for the third straight year.
Throughout the weekend, the fight at the front had been between the Milton Keynes outfit and Ferrari, but a lightning start from the Mercedes and a crash involving both Scuderia cars and the Australian’s teammate Max Verstappen resulted in a much different battle for the win than many were expecting.
Asked for his view on the incident between the three drivers that started around him, Ricciardo didn’t want to apportion blame but conceded he was quite fortunate with how it played out.
“I just kind of watched the chaos unfold in front of me,” he said. “It just looked like three were trying to go into one. I don’t know whose fault it was, but it was just too close.
“It was probably a good thing that I got a bad start. Otherwise, I would probably have got caught up in it!”
Commenting on his race as a whole, he added: “The rain made it all pretty hectic today. Everyone was in the same boat though and we hadn’t driven in the wet here before.
“In the first few laps, I felt we were okay in the wet but then I felt we were a bit harsh on the tyres. Even when we pitted and had fresher tyres, we couldn’t really make an impact on Lewis.”
After the race, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner revealed Ricciardo was dealing with a gearbox issue which threatened his participation at various stages.
“The team was asking me to manage the gears through the race,” the 28-year-old explained. “We had a leak and were losing oil pressure in the gearbox from early on.”
To make the finish then was a relief for Ricciardo but with a third and now three second’s in the last four years, he admitted it’s frustrating he’s yet to stand on the top step.
“I can’t win the bloody thing! I’m trying, I’m trying,” he said on the podium. “Today we didn’t have that probably Friday pace we showed in practice to have the pace on Mercedes, so a little disappointed obviously to miss out.
“Of course I came here to win and really wanted it,” he added. “But second place is great and I’m not going to complain about it.”
