Ricciardo felt F1 podium was on without second red flag

It was mixed emotions for Daniel Ricciardo as he narrowly missed out on a Formula 1 podium finish at the Tuscan Grand Prix.

Ricciardo looked to be on course for Renault’s first podium since the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix until the closing laps at Mugello, where he was overtaken by the Red Bull of Alexander Albon into Turn 1 in the closing laps.

Without the second red flag due to Lance Stroll’s heavy shunt, Ricciardo believes he had enough in hand on the medium tyres to maintain P3 over Albon.

“Yeah, I am somewhere in the middle,” Ricciardo said. “I am bouncing from happy and fulfilled to a little bit sad. The truth is, it is a bit like Monza last week, we put ourselves in the best position. We did all we could. At the very end we did not have that last bit to hold onto podium. We were there. Without the red flag from stroll, I feel like we had good control in the mediums, so maybe that was a better chance for us to hold onto third.

“But we are getting close, and to see happiness in the team and also some disappointment with a fourth-place, that is a good place to be. Everyone is hungry.”

Renault went into the weekend at Mugello not expecting to perform as well as it has struggled at high downforce venues such as Barcelona.

Sunday’s performance at Mugello has left Ricciardo confident going into the remainder of 2020 that Renault can perform on all types of circuits.

“We might be a little bit sad that we got so close to a podium today, but when we step back and look at the performance, it was a track that we did not really expect to be particularly competitive on,” Ricciardo added. “It is a higher downforce on, it is one that we have not been particularly strong on, Barcelona and the style circuits are not our strengths. So good progress on the style circuit today.

“That is really encouraging, it gives us a bit of encouragement coming to other high downforce circuits. So it looks like we are getting the car in a better place. It is still so close in that pack, but on Sundays our race pace is solid. So if we qualify towards the front it puts us in a good place on Sunday.”