18/09/2017
NEWS STORY
Having dominated every practice session, and only lost out in qualifying due to the brilliance of Sebastian Vettel, it was widely assumed that Red Bull would be strong in yesterday's race.
Then fate stepped in, in the shape of the weather gods and an ill-advised pincer movement from the Ferrari duo.
However, having, like Lewis Hamilton, escaped the start-line calamity, Daniel Ricciardo was never able to challenge the Briton, and despite two further safety car periods during the race, thereby closing up the field, the Australian was unable to take advantage.
Team boss Christian Horner subsequently revealed that it was an early gearbox issue which meant Ricciardo was unable to challenge Hamilton, indeed there were fears the team might experience its first double DNF of the season.
"Even before the first safety car, we could see were losing an awful lot of oil pressure in the gearbox," the Briton told Sky Sports F1. "So we were thinking, ‘crikey, this is only going to go to half-distance'.
"So Daniel had instructions to start managing that," he revealed, "and he had to sacrifice lap time doing that.
"He did that incredibly well, and managed to nurse the car home for almost another hour and a half."
Asked whether Ricciardo might have won the race were it not for the issue, Horner admitted: "We certainly could have been closer and put a bit more pressure on, but I think it's very different conditions today, what with the rain, the rubber being gone, it's cooler than Friday, they were all factors. Mercedes, particularly Lewis - we had Valtteri [Bottas] covered - but Lewis had a really strong day."
However, oil pressure in his gearbox wasn't the only problem Ricciardo encountered on Sunday, as Valtteri Bottas will testify.
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Check out our Sunday gallery from Singapore, here.