Mexico City [Mexico], October 30 : AlphaTauri's Daniel Ricciardo finished seventh in the Mexico City Grand Prix after a hard-fought race, with the Australian relishing being back at the pointy end of the field and competing with the likes of McLaren and Mercedes.
In only his second weekend back after breaking his hand at Zandvoort, Ricciardo was one of the standout - and surprise - performers in qualifying at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez ahead of local hero Red Bull's Sergio Perez.
Ricciardo then showed excellent performance throughout the race, but eventually slid to seventh place at the finish, with the Australian believing that the red flag brought out for Kevin Magnussen's dramatic crash had cost him.
"I am... To be honest, when I saw the red flag, I was like 'urgggh', because the race was just kind of going very nice and smooth and we were in fifth and everything was kind of on plan and at that point, it looked like we could have finished fifth," Ricciardo said of if he was satisfied with the result as quoted as saying by Formula 1.
"But on the other hand, when there's a big crash, you can't think too much about yourself obviously. It was good to hear that Kevin was okay, and I heard it was a car failure as well, so out of his control and that's racing, these things happen and it's the same for everyone," he added.
Ricciardo's pace was so strong that he spent the final few laps chasing down George Russell's Mercedes, coming up just half a second short at the finish - with Ricciardo conceding that P6 would have been a great bonus.
"Some people had different tyres for the restart, so we were probably a little bit hindered [compared] to some cars with the medium," Ricciardo said.
"I think we still did well to still grab a top-seven... I think sixth would have been even nicer but to fight a Mercedes at the end of the race - big picture, we have to be very happy, It's definitely more fun fighting at the front. It just feels better, feels right, so happy with the weekend and we'll try to keep this thing rolling," he added.
Meanwhile, a day that promised a large haul of points for AlphaTauri was hindered by a crash for Ricciardo's teammate Yuki Tsunoda when challenging Oscar Piastri for P7, the ensuing spin dropping the Japanese driver to 12th at the finish.
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