Daniel Ricciardo has labelled his Chinese Grand Prix win as a “real reward” for the hard work done by his Red Bull mechanics following his en𝓡gine troubles after qualifying. 

A suspected turbo failure on his Renault engine in FP3 left Red Bull on the back foot with just two hours to fix Ricciardo’s car in time🍎 for qualifying. The Australian was sent out with minutes remaining in Q1 but managed to qualify sixth on the grid in what🍎 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described as a “miraculous” recovery. 

Red Bull made the most of a mid-race Safety Car to double-stack its drivers for fresh soft tyres compared to rivals Mercedes and Ferrari, with both teams opting to keep its drivers out as both favoured track position. Ricciardo then♏ pulled off a spectacular charge to claim a remarkable win. 

“I dont know what it is but I don’t seem to win boring races,” Ricciardo said. “They are all pretty fun. That was unexpected. 24 hours ago I thought we were g🐓oing to start last on the grid. Firstly thanks to the boys, I thanked them yesterday but this is the real reward for that work. The mechanics worked their buts off. 

“It was hectic,” he added. “I heard we had a Safety Car [when I was at] Turn 14 and got told we are going to double stack so co🧸me into the box. It happened very quickly and very decisive. They were winning moves so thanks a lo💫t to everyone at Red Bull. Fat lip and all I got the win.”

Ricciardo took advantage of his fresh rubber to pull off a plethora of stunning overtakes on Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and race-leader Valtteri Bottas e𒈔n route to victory. 

“Sometimes you’ve just got to lick tᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhe stamp and send it. I enjoyed it very much. Obviously we had the soft tyre so I knew we could get more out of it under braking than them. A lot of the time you get one chance to try so I made the most of the opportunity.”

Ricciardo dived down the inside of Bottas on the run t🌳o Turn 6 in what was arguably his most decisive and most spectacular manoeuvre of the race. Speaking about the pass, he said: “It was close. It was hard but fair. I saw him defend so I wanted to go shallower but then he came across again.

“I thought about pulling out - nah I’m just kidding but I knew there would always be e🌺nough room and the tyres had enough grip. Worst case I would have run wide and had the chance somewhere else.”