The safety car played into the hands of Daniel Ricciardo

For the sixth time this season, Daniel Ricciardo hoisted his Red Bull on the podium of a Grand Prix, taking third place at the finish in Belgium behind Lewis Hamilton et Sebastian Vettel.

Lonely for a long time in fifth, then in fourth position after the penalty received by Kimi Räikkönen for failure to respect the yellow flags, the Australian saw the race turn in his favor with the intervention of the safety car, following contact between the two Force Indias.

On the restart, the winner of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix took advantage of his ultra-soft tires against the Mercedes de Valtteri Bottas to get the better of the Finn and offer Red Bull Racing a result that alleviates the disappointment of the retirement of Max Verstappen.

« In the first laps with the ultra-softs, we struggled a lot, confesses Ricciardo. There was a lot of blistering, a problem we always have on this high-speed circuit. We struggled to progress in the first stint, then we put on the supersofts and found a good rhythm, we were able to achieve similar times to the leaders.

Safety car opened opportunity for restart with Valtteri and I capitalized on that. He was on the softs, I was on the ultra-softs, and I knew that if we wanted to have a podium, it would happen at this moment. Once his tires were up to temperature, it would have been more difficult to do anything. »

Find the full report and analysis of the Belgian Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Spa, in issue 2129 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version and this Wednesday on newsstands.