A lucky and solo podium for Daniel Ricciardo

Certainly Red Bull Racing won his second podium of the year in Spain thanks to Daniel Ricciardo, but the observation for the Milton Keynes team must be clearly nuanced. First, the Australian driver finishes more than a minute behind the winner Lewis Hamilton. On the other hand, Ricciardo's podium is also due to the problems encountered by Valtteri Bottas, long third on his Mercedes W08 before suffering a mechanical problem.

“I'm happy to be back on the podium today, it's the first of the season for me which is nice, but I had a lonely race, describes Ricciardo. I didn't have any real battles and my race was more about trying to maintain pace and concentration. I had a bit of luck with Valtteri's problem towards the end of the race which allowed me to come back to third. »

On the significant gap with the two leading teams, Daniel Ricciardo believes that the task is not insurmountable, but should take a lot of time. “Today we enjoy the podium, but tomorrow we must understand how to reduce the gap between Ferrari and Mercedes, explains the Australian.

I want to take the positives from this weekend, continue to work hard and improve. I don't think it's impossible to catch up with the leaders but maybe it will take a little longer than we had hoped, but we will get there. »

Daniel Ricciardo is particularly waiting for the Monaco race, where he was close to winning last year, to hope to interfere in the fight with Ferrari and Mercedes. “I think I got the most out of the car today. In Monaco we will have some more updates, which will give us another step forward, and on this track anything can happen. »

Discover the full report and analysis of the Spanish Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Catalonia, in issue 2114 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.