Daniel Ricciardo struck third time lucky at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, scoring his first points for Renault to avoid a hat-trick of retirements since moving from Red Bull at the end of last season.
The 29-year-old winner of seven grands prix, including two last year, finished seventh in Formula One’s 1,000th world championship race.
“It’s good to get on the board, good to finish a race. We were looking for that for the last couple. It was nice. We’ll take the positives and try and build on that,” he said.
“We’ve still got work to do to get both cars home in the points. We’ll take positives from today, but we’re trying to find a bit more every weekend.”
Both the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly, the Frenchman who has replaced Ricciardo, finished ahead of the Australian in fourth and sixth respectively.
Gasly also bagged an extra point for setting the fastest lap right at the end, something Ricciardo was never in a position to do as he saved his tyres on a one-stop strategy while lapped by Mercedes’ race winner Lewis Hamilton.
Ricciardo’s German team mate Nico Hulkenberg, who finished seventh in the Australian opener, retired after 16 laps with a suspected motor generator (MGU-K) problem.
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