Daniel Ricciardo says it hurt him to be lapped by former team-mate Sebastian Vettel in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Vettel took an impressive victory for Ferrari as he outpaced the two Mercedes cars to win at Sepang, beating Lewis Hamilton by over eight seconds. With the top three cars so far clear of the rest of the field, everyone up to seventh-placed Max Verstappen was lapped by Vettel.

Ricciardo finished tenth behind team-mate Daniil Kvyat after another frustrating day for Red Bull, and when asked how far away the team appears when he sees Ferrari taking such a big step forward, Ricciardo replied: “Yeah that's the icing on the cake.

“Congrats to Seb but getting lapped by him wasn't the best feeling in the world.”

And Ricciardo says he felt “helpless” to deliver a good result as Red Bull struggled with front brake issues which left him unable to successfully defend in a number of battles.

“Not exciting, just helpless to be honest, I feel like I come in fired up and ready to go and it was just hard to put up a fight today. We had a few other issues here and there which sort of hindered us in a fight.

“It's frustrating, I feel I want to battle and have some fun but every time we did it was just had to pay consequences for trying, and I was just driving around and not really getting much out of it. Yeah, it was a long day.”

Click here for Sunday's gallery from the Malaysian Grand Prix

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

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.

Recent Posts

‘That was on me’ – Perez owns up to Shanghai tangle with Bottas

Last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix was barely a few corners old before the black-and-white Cadillacs…

8 mins ago

Leclerc defies peers, defends F1 new era: ‘It doesn’t feel artificial’

The 2026 Formula 1 season has touched down with the subtlety of a localized earthquake,…

2 hours ago

Norris: McLaren ‘not at level we need’ but confident of turnaround

Lando Norris was denied the chance to race in Shanghai, but the reigning world champion…

3 hours ago

A picture-perfect St. Patrick's Day!

Bring out your green, for it's St. Patrick's Day, which is the perfect excuse for…

5 hours ago

Wolff's Mercedes heritage flight for past and present stars

Once a Mercedes driver, always a Mercedes driver – and apparently always welcome aboard Toto…

6 hours ago

Very happy Gasly says Alpine now ‘in a completely different league’

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly walked away from last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix with a smile –…

7 hours ago