Ricciardo keen to get to work at 'sick' Austin

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Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo is eager to get to the Circuit of the Americas for the United States Grand Prix next week, as he looks for more end-of-season success over the dominant Mercedes team.

Ricciardo had finished in second place four times this year before finally landing victory of the season in Malaysia last month. Sixth place in the following Grand Prix in Japan was one of his weaker results of 2016, and the Australian is hoping to bounce back to form and challenge for the win in the next race.

"The track in Austin is sick, I love it," said Ricciardo as he prepared to fly out. "It has a lot of unique features like the wide apex at turn one, you could fit about four cars side by side through there.

"There are loads of opportunities to overtake and have fun throughout the whole track. It has fast flowing sections and hairpins, pretty much everything I like in a track."

Ricciardo added that he was also looking forward to the social side of the weekend.

"Austin city is also awesome, I really like its character," he explained. "It’s raw and authentic which makes it cool without trying to be.

"The old school bars and music venues which are super cool just makes it work. Pete’s Piano bar and Rainey Street has a lot of local music which is a really nice vibe and I want to check out Hotel Vegas this year."

The United States Grand Prix is the first of three consecutive races to be held in the American continent followed by Mexico and Brazil, before Formula One returns to the Middle East for the season finale in Abu Dhabi on 27 November.

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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.