Daniel Ricciardo believes Red Bull Racing is in the battle to be the second fastest team on the grid.
The 24-year-old remains upbeat ahead of the second round of the 2014 season in Malaysia despite being excluded from the Australian Grand Prix.
He qualified in second place for the season opener and retained his position in the race to score the first podium of his career.
However, the former Toro Rosso racer was excluded five hours later after his car was found to have consistently exceeded the maximum fuel flow limit. Red Bull lodged a formal appeal on Thursday. The case will be heard by the International Court of Appeal on April 14th.
Commenting on his first race as a Red Bull Racing driver, he told the team's official website: "That was definitely a good grand prix for me. Great to start on the front row after a tricky qualifying session. I stayed cool at the lights and got a good run down to Turn One and was able to hold onto P2.
"From there I was able to run the race I wanted and control my own fate. The Mercedes obviously had superior pace, second was always going to be the best I could hope for and I was really happy to deliver that. Crossing the line and having the crowd all jump up on their feet and applaud... that was pretty special. It's different to how you imagine it."
He said the podium ceremony was "surreal" but admitted that the exclusion put "a bit of a downer" on his home race.
"Actually it's mostly positives: I did a good job in the car and I got to stand on the Australian Grand Prix podium – and no-one's taking the sensation of doing that away," he said.
"What happens next is outside of my ability to control but honestly, I'd rather it went down like this than have retired from the race with a mechanical problem. I'll take a podium and a subsequent disqualification over that any day of the week."
The Aussie believes Red Bull can challenge for more podium finishes this season. "Albert Park's made me hungry to get on the podium again – and I think we've got a really good chance of doing it," he said.
"The work we did in the winter targeted reliability rather than performance. It was only in Melbourne that we got the opportunity to start working on a set-up. The RB10 surprised us by being pretty competitive in the dry and very competitive in the wet. It's going to get much better as we dial it in over the next few races and catch up with those teams that did more miles pre-season."
When asked how competitive he thinks the team's 2014 challenger is, he replied: "At the moment, we're in the battle to be the second-best team. Obviously that isn't where we want to be but it's exceeding our expectations of only a few weeks ago. I think once we really get into the setup of the car, we'll be able to close the gap to Mercedes. Obviously they're going to improve too but I think we're in a good position to make bigger strides."
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| © Red Bull/Getty Images |
He qualified in second place for the season opener and retained his position in the race to score the first podium of his career.
However, the former Toro Rosso racer was excluded five hours later after his car was found to have consistently exceeded the maximum fuel flow limit. Red Bull lodged a formal appeal on Thursday. The case will be heard by the International Court of Appeal on April 14th.
Commenting on his first race as a Red Bull Racing driver, he told the team's official website: "That was definitely a good grand prix for me. Great to start on the front row after a tricky qualifying session. I stayed cool at the lights and got a good run down to Turn One and was able to hold onto P2.
"From there I was able to run the race I wanted and control my own fate. The Mercedes obviously had superior pace, second was always going to be the best I could hope for and I was really happy to deliver that. Crossing the line and having the crowd all jump up on their feet and applaud... that was pretty special. It's different to how you imagine it."
He said the podium ceremony was "surreal" but admitted that the exclusion put "a bit of a downer" on his home race.
"Actually it's mostly positives: I did a good job in the car and I got to stand on the Australian Grand Prix podium – and no-one's taking the sensation of doing that away," he said.
"What happens next is outside of my ability to control but honestly, I'd rather it went down like this than have retired from the race with a mechanical problem. I'll take a podium and a subsequent disqualification over that any day of the week."
The Aussie believes Red Bull can challenge for more podium finishes this season. "Albert Park's made me hungry to get on the podium again – and I think we've got a really good chance of doing it," he said.
"The work we did in the winter targeted reliability rather than performance. It was only in Melbourne that we got the opportunity to start working on a set-up. The RB10 surprised us by being pretty competitive in the dry and very competitive in the wet. It's going to get much better as we dial it in over the next few races and catch up with those teams that did more miles pre-season."
When asked how competitive he thinks the team's 2014 challenger is, he replied: "At the moment, we're in the battle to be the second-best team. Obviously that isn't where we want to be but it's exceeding our expectations of only a few weeks ago. I think once we really get into the setup of the car, we'll be able to close the gap to Mercedes. Obviously they're going to improve too but I think we're in a good position to make bigger strides."
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