Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo - 4th
“Today was fun for me, it was so good to be back racing. I came on the radio more than once expressing my joy to just being out there competing. That joy was emphasized by having a good car underneath me. At the start we were able to pick cars off. We had good pace with high fuel on the Option and it was fun to be able to pass cars, I was enjoying that as always. I was sitting in a podium spot towards the end and I was hoping the tyres would last but I knew they weren’t going to hold and I would have to pit again. But fourth is still a good result and I’m happy we’re not that far off Mercedes and Ferrari. It was also good to see that Fernando and Esteban are okay. I haven’t watched the replay yet but I saw the car upside down so I knew it wasn’t a small accident.”
Daniil Kvyat - DNS
“I’m glad Fernando is OK, it looked like a very bad accident and it’s a relief to know that he is alright. In terms of my day, it looks like an electronic issue put us out of the race before it started. I think Australia doesn’t seem to be the luckiest place for me so far. The car just shut itself off – I guess it didn’t want to do the race today, but we’ll be back in Bahrain and we’ll start again from there! Last year it was very hard to take, not starting the race, but this year I’m a stronger person so I’ll be OK, these things happen, that’s life and that’s racing.”
Christian Horner, team principal
“A great drive from Daniel at his home race, he drove a competitive race from start to finish. It was always a long shot for a podium but he did everything possible today. It’s encouraging to see the pace of the car in race trim. It’s a shame that Dany wasn’t able to start the race today, he seems to be cursed here in Melbourne. He unfortunately had a CU-H failure on the power unit, but he’ll be back in Bahrain. The biggest result today was seeing Fernando emerge unscathed from what looked like a very nasty accident. It’s a testament to the safety of the cars and the circuits that he was able to walk away from that.”
