Ricciardo opens his account in Melbourne

Daniel Ricciardo has scored his first points of the season at the Formula 1® Heineken® Australian Grand Prix 2022 after finishing in sixth place.

In front of 130,000 cheering fans, the Western Australian tried to chase down his McLaren teammate Lando Norris in what was a race-long battle.

Earlier in the week Ricciardo said that he was targeting a top 10 result in qualifying. He certainly delivered on that, and more.

“For now, we’ll take it,” Ricciardo said after the race.

“It’s our best result of the season, it was good. Looked like a bit of a photo finish. I was told Lando had a few issues near the end, so I was told by the team… yeah, I had to control myself.”

“The first part of the race I thought we had something for Mercedes but as the race continued the gap extended.

“Then Lando had an issue at the end and dropped off and the team told me to be sensible. The last part of my race was lonely. I had the feeling that it was a step better but we can get more out of it (new layout).

“It’s still difficult to make moves because of the short braking zones but no need to redesign it again. It can change around quite a bit and we are still trying to get on top of our car and I knew we could have had a weekend like this.”

The 32-year-old says that he expects that there is more speed to come from his McLaren.

“There are areas where we can be better. Having a week off helps and gives you chance to breathe. When we get to race eight we should have a bit more to show.”

Ricciardo is now in 11^th place in the Formula 1 World Championship on eight points.

The next race of the championship is at Imola, Italy on April 24.