- Singapore GP - Race
Ricciardo feared retirement for power issue
Daniel Ricciardo says he spent half the Singapore Grand Prix worrying a power issue would spell the end of his Singapore Grand Prix as he finished third at Marina Bay.
In the closing stages Ricciardo was closing on struggling team-mate Sebastian Vettel while coming under pressure from Ferrari's Fernando Alonso for the final podium spot. But Ricciardo admits the looming Ferrari had been the least of his worries for the second half of the race.
"We had quite a bit going on - power was coming and going and, pretty much from the safety car onwards, it was consistently down on power," Ricciardo said. "I was concerned we wouldn't get all the way through to the flag but, luckily, it held on and hopefully we'll fix it for Japan. It was nice to get on the back of Seb and put him under a bit of pressure, but it was 'follow the leader' and not much else we could do.
"Coming up through the gears, it would get a little power and then drop and come again, so we definitely had a few issues. We tried fixing them but, to be honest, we didn't quite clear them all up. We'll have to look into that and see how much it cost us. Normally, if we have these glitches, after a couple of laps, we clear it, but this one pretty much carried through all the way, so I'm a bit frustrated."
Alonso later admitted he found it impossible to get near enough to Ricciardo due to the state of his tyres after the safety car, which the Australia says was a source of confusion at the time.
"I could see, after the restart, that he wasn't attacking as much as I thought with a new set of primes, so I thought he was holding back to make a late charge at the end. But we all piled up and I caught the back of Sebastian and [Alonso] caught up to the back of me. We were all in a train and not many opportunities arose for any of us. "It is what it was. I did expect him to come on a bit stronger at the end but, when you start following, you have to get the pedal down to set up a pass and you start hurting the rears, so you all sort of fall into each other's pace."
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