MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo loses out but little 'win'

Daniel Ricciardo missed out on a podium at the French Grand Prix but has gained a place – to third – in the Formula 1 World Championship.

A “wounded’ Red Bull RB14, the left side of its front wing damaged in the first half of the race and the right side too later, prevented Ricciardo holding off Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen for third place in the closing laps of the race at the Paul Ricard circuit.

Lewis Hamilton won for Mercedes to regain the championship lead from Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who collided with Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas on the opening lap.

Vettel recovered to finish fifth, behind Ricciardo, while Bottas got back up to seventh.

Ricciardo’s teammate Max Verstappen finished second, 7 seconds behind Hamilton, with Raikkonen almost 19 seconds further back in third.

After news last week of a big offer to Ricciardo to join McLaren next year, while a seat at Mercedes and more particularly Ferrari are a possibility, Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner said he would be “surprised” if the Australian departed the team, which will switch from Renault to Honda power next season.

“It would be a fairly bold decision to step out of a car he’s won two grands prix in this year and is a championship contender,” Horner said.

“I would be surprised if he was to leave the team because it’s a good fit between himself and Red Bull – but it is Formula 1.”

Horner said F1’s return to France after a 10-year absence had been “very frustrating” for Ricciardo, who had “looked good for a podium place”.

However, Horner claimed the race “represents a solid start to the ‘triple-header’ and we go directly to our home race in Austria where we hope to be as competitive there and take the fight to the leaders”, followed by the British GP at Silverstone the following weekend.

Carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo said he was “obviously a bit disappointed” with the outcome at Paul Ricard, despite moving ahead of Bottas in the championship.

“It’s a shame to lose out on the podium,” he said.

“We were definitely quicker than fourth place and it could have been a good battle with Max.

“I don’t know why yet but the front wing was damaged during the race.

“Before the (sole) pit stop we had really good pace on the supersoft tyres – we were pulling away from Kimi and catching Max.

“Then about two laps before I stopped I had damage to the left part of the front wing.

“I felt some understeer immediately and I don’t know whether it was a failure or I hit some debris, but the mechanics could see it during the stop.

"After the stop, the identical part on the right of the front wing also broke.

“Because of the damage we had less downforce, the car was understeering, and the tyres were suffering.

“Kimi was always going to catch us at the end of the race with that pace, the blue flags were also pretty bad, but we were a wounded car.

“It was a shame as we looked quite strong today.

“The positive is that we got some decent points, but we were definitely quicker than fourth and just unlucky.”

Hamilton now has 145 points to Vettel’s 131 with Ricciardo on 96 and Bottas 92, Raikkonen 83 and Verstappen 68.

Mercedes – which introduced an updated power unit in France, a race later than the Ferrari, Renault and Honda-powered teams – leads the constructors’ championship with 237 points to Ferrari’s 214 and Red Bull’s 164.

A big disappointment for the crowd at Paul Ricard was that French drivers Esteben Ocon (Force India-Mercedes) and Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso-Honda) collided on the first lap and were immediately out, while Romain Grosjean (Haas-Ferrari) finished a lap down and out of the points in 11th. Grosjean had had a big crash in qualifying after making it through to the top 10.

Charles Leclerc, the 20-year-old from Monaco and regarded pretty much as a Frenchman, starred again, qualifying his Sauber-Ferrari eighth and finishing 10th for another world championship point. He now has 11 points and talk during the weekend was that he is ahead of Ricciardo as a likely replacement for Raikkonen at Ferrari next year because, with just eight GPs under his belt, he comes at a much cheaper price than the Aussie.

The amazing thing about the French GP though was that McLaren and Williams – two British-based teams that years ago were F1’s finest – had their four cars among the five eliminated in the first round of qualifying and none in the points at the end of the race. McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne got the best result of the four – a distant 12th – while dual world champion teammate Fernando Alonso didn’t finish and was at his most caustic on the radio.

Canadian Lance Stroll was a non-finisher too in his Williams-Mercedes after a puncture caused him to crash close to the end, while his Russian teammate Sergey Sirotkin was the last classified finisher in 15th.