Ricciardo 'giggled like a little schoolboy' after Baku win

40

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was as surprised as anyone to find himself standing on the top step of the podium in Baku, after an incident-packed Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"This is the race we expected last year," the Australian said after the eventful race. "With all the safety cars, and all the chaos - we got it this year!"

He started from tenth place on the grid after crashing in the final round of qualifying on Saturday. He hit more misfortune early in the race when debris lodged in his brake ducts caused temperature issues on his RB13.

"I made an unplanned pit stop at the beginning," he explained. "After a few laps we had some debris in the brakes so hard to stop and clean it. We dropped back to 17th.

However, Ricciardo slowly and methodically worked his way forward again and was able to benefit from the misfortunes of others. He made a daring move at the final restart which allowed him to inherit the lead when Lewis Hamilton had to pit with a loose headrest and Sebastian Vettel was served a stop-go penalty.

"It was a crazy race," said Ricciardo afterwards. "We knew the podium was a chance after the restart but then we heard the problems with Lewis and Seb.

"Did I think then I'd win then? Absolutely not," he admitted. "I would have put all my money on it that this was very unlikely.

"When we had the red flag, when we got out the car, I saw the replays [of the Hamilton/Vettel crash] I was pretty sure Seb as going to get a penalty but I wasn't sure to what extent.

"I was thinking if it's only a ten second penalty then they probably had the pace to get that back. But then they said it was a ten second stop-go, I was like, 'alright'.

"Then they said Lewis' headrest is loose and he's pitting. I thought this is unreal, I'm now leading the race and it's in my hands!

Wild race in Baku hands victory to Daniel Ricciardo

"I was honestly speechless after the race. On the cool down lap I was just giggling like a little schoolboy.

"It was fun. Even when we got the red flag, I was on the radio saying 'This is fun, this is a good race,'" he said. "I was having fun in P5 and now I've won the race so you can imagine where I'm at right now. It's pretty unreal.

It's safe to say that the disappointment of Saturday's qualifying session was now a distant memory.

"Obviously yesterday I was disappointed with the mistake but I guess you've got to make these [errors] to try and fight for that last little bit.

"I knew today would be a different outcome, I said yesterday we had to stay out of trouble and it certainly paid off today.

"There's definitely been some positives this weekend," he said of Red Bull's performance overall in Baku. "There's been some signs that we're definitely getting closer [to Ferrari and Mercedes.]

"We're at that point in the season now where give it another couple of races and you'll see it get closer and closer."

GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

LAST CHANCE to enter our ULTIMATE TRACKDAY competition! FREE ENTRY HERE!

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.