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Ricciardo: Malaysia win made up for Monaco miss

Daniel Ricciardo has reflected upon a 'solid' 2016 F1 world championship for Red Bull and feels the promise of more from the year fills him with confidence heading into next season.

The Red Bull driver ended the campaign third in the F1 drivers' world championship which was boosted by a first return to the top step of the rostrum since 2014 with victory in Malaysia.

Aside from his two highlights of the win at Sepang plus his pole position at Monaco, the first of his F1 career, Ricciardo feels a win slipped away from him at the Monte Carlo race with a duff pit stop while he also believes a stronger result was on the cards until an early tyre blowout wrecked his race.

"If Malaysia didn't happen then I would look back and say I should have been a multiple race winner this year but because I have that race victory, I am not going to say it could have been better," Ricciardo said. "I got the pole in Monaco which I hadn't had before and I got back on the top step so for me that is awesome. It has been solid.

"We expected to be fighting midfield the first handful of races this year and then we came out with some fourths and it was looking really good and it got better. The win in Malaysia was epic but the pole in Monaco was my highlight because I put a lot of pressure on myself to go there and execute it. So, for me to do that lap was a relief.

"Then what was probably going to be a second in China we had the puncture and whatever but it was looking really good. We were like, alright, and it sort of got better so that was really cool. And I'm peasant's champion, so it's been solid."

Statistically 2016 was Ricciardo's best year in F1 having matched his overall third place from 2014 but outscoring that season by 18 points, albeit with two extra races on this season's calendar. Ricciardo notched up one win and seven further rostrum results plus his maiden F1 pole position. 

Zdroj: crash.net