Ricciardo: Monaco GP weekend the best of my F1 career 

Daniel Ricciardo reckons he extracted the best performance of his Formula 1 career throughout the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, which culminated in a brilliant victory. 

The Red Bull driver utterly dominated proceedings in Monte Carlo as he topped every single on-track session and stormed to pole position, before leading from start to finish to score his seventh career win. 

Ricciardo battled engine issues and used only six gears for the majority of the race after losing 25 percent of his engine on Lap 18, which Red Bull said cost the Australian around 2.5s per lap. 

“I think it’s definitely my best weekend, most satisfying,” Ricciardo admitted. “Right now it’s still a lot to process, but once it all settles, yeah, I can probably say that. 

“The race itself was a different race to China. China I obviously got everything going and got the adrenaline up and whatnot. This one on the whole was probably the best weekend of my career.”

Red Bull hailed Ricciardo’s drive as “unbelievable”, with team principal Christian Horner likening his driver’s management of his ongoing issues to Michael Schumacher’s superb run to second place in the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix while stuck in fifth gear. 

When asked what Horner’s reference to Schumacher’s drive meant to him, Ricciardo replied: “Obviously it’s a compliment towards me and my race. So much went on, I guess for me in that race trying to figure out what was going on. It’s hard to let it all sink in once it’s done. 

“Even now it feels weird I did get that win. But obviously yeah I’ll take the compliment. It’s a long weekend here. With the practice on a Thursday, it stretches the weekend an extra day. It’s a long weekend. There’s a lot of hype. I mean I love it, it is the most fun weekend of the year, but it is pretty draining. 

“Going through all that, then finally starting, getting a good start - that was really the key moment,” he added. “Then the problems I had, it threw a lot of doubt in my mind for a few laps. But every lap I got by with no extra problems was a little victory, so happy to see the chequered flag.”