After leading the United States Grand Prix during the early stages of the race when the Circuit of the Americas track was at its wettest, Daniel Ricciardo felt like it was old times again for the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team, only to drop down the field once the track dried out.
The Australian took the lead when he overtook Lewis Hamilton while everyone was running on the intermediate Pirelli tyre, but ultimately found himself scoring only one point for tenth place after twice colliding with rivals and being forced into the pits for an unscheduled pit stop late in the race.
“The beginning was really fun between both Mercedes and both Red Bulls,” said Ricciardo afterwards. “It was a good four-way battle. To see the Mercs not getting away from us was awesome. I was enjoying that.
“In the lead we were quite quick for a few laps and it felt like old times. That obviously didn’t last long and once we put the slicks on we just didn’t have the pace. We struggled with the warm up with the tyres and also struggled a lot with braking today.
“It was so tricky in the dry and then obviously there were the collisions with [Nico] Hulkenberg and Carlos [Sainz Jr]. It went downhill from then on. Even though we were on slicks it was never really dry out there. The kerbs were slippery and there was still a bit of a puddle through Turns 9 and 10, so it was definitely tricky.
“Dany [Kvyat] spun off just in front of me on to the Astroturf and into the wall. It was a crazy race and I hope the fans enjoyed it as it was quite action packed.”
