Ricciardo: I let frustration creep in a little bit too much

Despite high pre-season expectations, stats will show that Ricciardo failed to finish on the podium in the first four races of the season but then followed that up with five podiums in a row, including his against all odds victory in Baku - the only one he would score all year on his way to fifth in the final Formula 1 world championship standings.

In an interview with Racer, Ricciardo reflected on the 2017 F1 season, "I certainly found out a bit about myself. You do every year, but I think this year in some ways was more testing than previous years."

Fatter tyres, wider and faster cars came into being at the beginning of the year and Red Bull were caught on the back foot, the team explaining that wind tunnel calibration problems had impacted the design of the car hence the early season problems.

Ricciardo explained, "The cars initially, especially our one, was a bit more tricky to manage. Earlier in the year, I should have just dealt with it – I think we just tried to change it too much and try to get it perfect. The sooner we acknowledged that it wasn't a perfect car."

"So at times, I was maybe too sensitive. It's been a strength of mine in the past - I feel a lot with the car and can maybe get that last little bit through feeling or through dictating the setup - but it probably was a detriment to me at times this year."

Reflecting on where he believes he was weak, he said, "I guess sometimes I got a bit frustrated. Saturdays are normally a strength of mine [but] they all didn't go that well for me. I crashed a couple of times in qualifying and sometimes I probably let the frustration creep in a little bit too much."

"But these are normal things, not things I am worried about moving forward. I think I already addressed some of them but I'll look to clean it up for 2018."

As for his strengths, the Aussie said, "I think the racing. I think the desire on a Sunday. No matter how my Saturday went I always feel like I was able to get on the grid on the Sunday with a clear mind, put the Saturday behind me and just go all out on Sunday and still manage to bring back what was maybe an average weekend into a good weekend."

"There were a few weekends like that which were awesome. The Saturdays were not always great, but the Sundays I was able to put it behind me and that was important," added Ricciardo who was voted "Best Overtaker of the Season" by Grand Prix 247 readers in our annual Awards poll.