Relief for Ricciardo: 'Think I deserved a bit of luck'

After a long series of races in which only a handful of points were scored, McLaren left Singapore with a whopping 22 points. Lando Norris grabbed fourth place and was immediately followed by Daniel Ricciardo, who recorded his best result of the season with P5.

For Ricciardo in particular, the good result comes as a relief. The Australian came back from a 16th starting position and once again scored well at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which has historically been good to him. With the double points finish, McLaren also passes Alpine in the standings, helped by the fact that both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon failed to cross the finish line.

Ricciardo needed a bit of luck

"We needed this, and as much as I’m looking forward to Japan I want to enjoy this one," Ricciardo said in conversation with Formula1.com. "I feel with the result, you know, I certainly feel good – it’s been a long time. I think my last top five was probably a year ago in Saudi." The McLaren driver calls the latter "a bit sad", but he feels he has certainly deserved some luck after the difficult year he has had so far.

With the strong result from both drivers and Alpine's double failure, McLaren passes the rival team for fourth place in the championship. The British racing team enjoys a marginal three-point lead over the team of Alonso and Ocon.