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Daniel Ricciardo’s fourth place finish in the British Grand Prix, tying Renault’s best result since its return to Formula 1 in 2016, was earned with a gutsy move nobody saw.
Ricciardo seemed destined for a frustrating seventh at Silverstone behind the McLarens of Carlos Sainz Jr and Lando Norris, having lost some vital time behind long-running Haas driver Romain Grosjean.
He hovered outside DRS range of Norris for a few laps, but as the Briton – Ricciardo’s team-mate at McLaren next year – confessed post-race, he was struggling with his front tyres and Ricciardo “had much better pace”.
On lap 49 of 52, Ricciardo gained a vital amount of time with a neater run through Brooklands and Luffield, which put him within half a second.
He kept in firing range despite unsurprisingly losing a tenth or so trying to follow Norris through the sweeps of Maggots, Becketts and Chapel, and a combination of using a higher engine mode, the tow and use of the DRS created a sudden opportunity.
“I had quite a late run on DRS, the effect came fairly late in the straight and it might have been he was clipping as well,” explained Ricciardo.
“The race had spikes of chaos and then there were moments of monotony. But when there were the spikes, there was a lot going on” :: Daniel Ricciardo
“I caught him late, I didn’t really feel that I was going to have it but really late on I got the run.
“So I just thought, ‘alright I’ll kind of dive into the inside and try and at least put my nose there’.
“But by the time we braked I was already pretty much there. So it was a pretty straightforward move in the end, it was nice to get that one on him and just give him a taste of next year!”
If anything, Ricciardo’s description of the pass as a “pretty straightforward move” was an undersell on his side.
Dives to the inside at Stowe were rare all race as the corner is so high-speed now and the grip and trajectory of the turn tends to favour the car on the outside – in fact a few laps earlier, his team-mate Esteban Ocon had aborted a similar move on Lance Stroll.
Ricciardo was just unfortunate at the end of a dull grand prix to pull the overtake at almost the exact moment Valtteri Bottas’s deflated front-right tyre sent him off-track and signalled the start of a chaotic final few minutes at the front.
“When I got out of the car I asked Michael [Italiano], my trainer, if they broadcast the move on Lando and he said they didn’t,” Ricciardo lamented.
It was a crucial move in the midfield because Sainz suffered a front-left puncture into the Maggots/Becketts complex the next time round, shuffling Ricciardo from seventh to fourth in the space of almost exactly one lap.
That created an unexpectedly positive end to what had become a disappointing race for Ricciardo, who had already passed Norris once in the grand prix.
He opportunistically got ahead of Stroll and Norris around the outside into Luffield and Copse respectively on the opening lap, but was repassed by Norris in similar fashion to his own move on Stroll after a safety car restart.
The big gain in track position at the end was bittersweet to Ricciardo, though, given he finished just 1.1s behind third-place finisher Charles Leclerc.
“It feels good,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy, but as a competitor you always want more.
“I think Charles was 1.1s in front so I’m like ‘aaaarrrggggh, so close’ but it was really cool.
“The race had spikes of chaos and then there were moments of monotony as we see sometimes on these high speed circuits.
“But when there were the spikes, there was a lot going on so yeah it was cool.
“Another good first lap, that’s something I really wanted to improve on this year so that was strong and then we’re in there at the end chasing the McLarens down, and then punctures and chaos.
“It was wild, and then through all that I saw the Ferrari getting closer.
“I spoke to Charles a bit in the pen and I think I just had a bit of pace on him towards the end.
“We’ll see how we go in seven days’ time and maybe have a bit more of a crack.”
Fourth place still matches Ricciardo’s best result for Renault in last year’s Italian Grand Prix, when he earned the highest finish of the works team’s comeback so far.
