There was no lack of drama in Daniel Ricciardo's eventful Hungarian Grand Prix afternoon, with scraps, clashes and some good racing delivering the Australian his best result of the season.
Red Bull was a surprise contender since the inception of the race weekend with the twisty Hungaroring minimizing the team's inherent engine weaknesses and putting both of its drivers in a position to challenge for a podium finish, which they rightfully did.
Ricciardo was in a fighting mood from lap 1 to the checkered flag, involved in several contacts, and even colliding with both Mercedes drivers at one point or the other, but still remaining on track for a gratifying third place finish.
"It was a crazy race from the start," Ricciardo said. "I had a pretty big contact with Bottas I believe at the first corner as the car jumped in the air and I thought I'd damaged something. But I still had some relatively good pace and as Daniil was struggling, the team decided to let me go through."
On the restart after the Safety Car period, Ricciardo took advantage of his softer tyre-shod Red Bull to resume his afternoon charge only to be hit by Hamilton. In spite of suffering sidepod and floor damage, the contact did nothing to hamper the Australian's pace and fighting spirit as he soon caught up with second-place man Nico Rosberg with less than 10 laps remaining.
"I had to try something and got a pretty good run out of the last corner, so I went for it. To be honest, the move was a bit late, but right up until the apex it was fine. Nico saw me and left me room on the entry, but on the exit he came back across and we made contact. He got a puncture and I got more front-end damage."
Fortunately, Ricciardo managed to preserve his podium finish and Red Bull's best result to date, dedicating his competitive result to the memory of Jules Bianchi.
"This race was definitely for Jules. I put my heart into everything today and that's what Jules would have wanted. Watching him grow up, he had some amazing race craft. I drove inspired today. It's been an emotional week, and this one is definitely for him."
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