Sunday: Second consecutive victory for Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo managed to take advantage of the battle between the Mercedes to claim his second consecutive victory after Hungary. He once again outperformed his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who couldn't finish better than 5th.
Daniel Ricciardo (No. 3) – 1st
While observers thought that Red Bull wouldn’t be comfortable on the Ardennes circuit, Daniel Ricciardo managed to win again for the third time this season: « You know, everyone was saying that we wouldn’t have any chance here but I think we had a really good pace today and surprised ourselves. It’s a bit unreal, but another win is really cool, really cool. It was difficult to stay ahead towards the end of the race. »
One of the big questions about the end of his race was once again the management of his tires to prevent Nico Rosberg from catching up: « When you’re in the lead, you always feel the most vulnerable when it comes to deciding whether or not to make a pit stop. But Simon [Rennie], my engineer, told me over the radio eleven laps from the end: ‘Can these tires last until the end?’ And I replied that I thought I could maintain more or less this pace. We managed to do it and in the last lap, I managed to find a few extra tenths. So I had a lot of fun. »
Especially, one of the big differences is that he managed to build his victory throughout the race, rather than just attacking at the end like in Canada and Hungary: « There were a lot of good things with this victory today. Obviously, the last two came with a more aggressive racing style, but today was more calculated and it was nice to win in different circumstances. »
Sebastian Vettel (No.1) – 5th
The four-time world champion enjoyed the end-of-race battle: At the end of the race, it went well. I was eager to overtake because the laps were ticking down and obviously Alonso and Magnussen didn’t have fresh tires. Jenson and I caught up with them quickly. In the end, it was a good thing not to lose position compared to when we decided to pit. It was done a bit late, but we maintained our position. The battle was quite interesting. It was all over the place, with people pushing each other off the track, but we’re fighting hard, sometimes a bit too hard. The team did a great job during pit stops. The three pit stops looked really fast.
On the other hand, the German did not have any words to celebrate his teammate’s victory. Mercedes may not be the only team that has to manage the relationship between its two drivers…
