RICCIARDO WORKS HIS MAGIC AGAIN
DANIEL RICCIARDO is the master conjurer who comes from next to nowhere to win races. From sixth, fourth, fifth, fourth, 10th and sixth. And, in the case of his victory in China, nearly from the very back of the grid. His weekend was just 45 seconds from pointlessness when his mechanics completed one of the fastest engine changes imaginable to get him out just in time to take part in qualifying. Otherwise he would have started from the back row. Then it was a mixture of a brilliant strategy call and his surgically precise passing that did the rest. His opportunity came when Pierre Gasly drove his Toro Rosso into team-mate Brendon Hartley. Debris was sprayed about and the safety car came out on lap 31 of 56. Red Bull assessed their options. Team manager Jonathan Wheatley briefed team principal Christian Horner on the risks and possible rewards of peeling into the pits for new tyres. Horner decided to bring his pair in. ‘You can’t phone a friend,’ he joked when asked if he made the final call. In came Max Verstappen and Ricciardo, the only front-runners to do so. They lost a place each. But, on the fresher and faster rubber, Ricciardo carved his way sweetly past his rivals to clinch his first win since Baku last year. ‘I don’t seem to win boring races,’ he said. ‘The mechanics worked their butts off for this reward.’