Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo reckons he has an “outside chance” of competing for this year’s Formula 1 title off the back of his Monaco Grand Prix victory.
Ricciardo dominated the weekend’s action in Monaco as he topped all three practice sessions and led the way through qualifying, before going on to win despite suffering an MGU-K failure.
Ricciardo’s second win of the campaign, after his Chinese Grand Prix success, elevated him to third in the Drivers’ Championship on 72 points, 38 behind reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
“I think Lewis still has a pretty good buffer on me, so we’re still on the outside of that,” he said.
“It’s not impossible but not really at the forefront of my mind yet. But, even if it was, I’m not going to change obviously the way that I’m driving or trying to attack.
“I’ll try to get a few more podiums but we’ve got to probably prove on at least one other circuit before the summer break that we can win again. And then maybe we’re a nice little outside chance.”
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner added that Ricciardo’s pair of wins already in 2018 fully demonstrated the inherent pace of its RB14.
“I think it’s important he’s now on the same amount of victories as Lewis and Sebastian [Vettel] six races into the season,” said Horner.
“I think in Bahrain he would have been a genuine contender had he not had a reliability issue and we all know what happened in Baku.
“I think he’s up to third in the championship now, and I think we’ve got a very strong car.
“You’ve seen that all weekend, he’s been the quickest driver. Pole position, race victory and even making up for the disadvantage that we had.”
On contract discussions, with Ricciardo’s future still uncertain, Horner said: “He knows the quality of this team, he can see how well he fits in this team and I’m hopeful we can move these things along in the next couple of months.”
