SEPANG, Malaysia -- Daniel Ricciardo says losing out to a fast-starting Valtteri Bottas in the run to Turn 1 potentially cost Red Bull a one-two finish in Malaysia.
Teammate Max Verstappen claimed his second career win in Sepang, finishing 12 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton with Ricciardo a further 10 seconds down the road. Bottas had enjoyed a super launch from fifth on the grid, passing Ricciardo and very nearly Verstappen by the exit of Turn 2, but struggled to match the frontrunners' pace when everything settled down.
Ricciardo was tucked up behind the Finn's gearbox for the better part of nine laps before managing to find a way through. However, by then his chance of victory was all but over.
"Off the start I chose to go the inside and obviously [Bottas] had a better run on the outside, so that wasn't the best line from me," said Ricciardo. "I had a couple of gos at him, he defended pretty well initially and then finally I got around him but by then Max and Lewis had taken off."
After navigating his way around Bottas, the Australian dragged his Red Bull to within five seconds of second-placed Hamilton but lost out enormously in the pit stop phase when he was instructed to stay out four laps longer. He re-joined on lap 30 over 18 seconds behind the Briton.
"Towards the end of that first stint [on the supersoft tyre] I was keeping pretty good times, finally bringing some lap time back. But they all pitted before and pulled away again."
From there, Ricciardo had to contend with Sebastian Vettel's charging Ferrari. The German had started the grand prix last after suffering a turbo failure in qualifying but produced a stunning recovery drive to find himself behind Ricciardo with 10 laps remaining.
Vettel, on the faster supersoft tyre, looked to make a move on a number of occasions but Ricciardo defended fairly and held on to third place.
"My engineer kept telling me he was catching me and I was like, alright, thanks, I know," he said. "I wasn't giving much feedback on the radio so I think he got the picture."
"I kinda defended a bit and then I closed the door a bit later towards the apex. I don't know if he was unhappy about it or whatever but it didn't seem over aggressive from my side.
"It didn't feel like I did a real late move or anything."