Ricciardo just happy to see chequered flag in China

Daniel Ricciardo has said he is thankful to have made it to the end of the Chinese Grand Prix after back-to-back DNF's to open his 2019 season with Renault.

The Australian endured a torrid start to the year with retirement at his home race in Australia and was met with an equally frustrating DNF in Bahrain.

However in Shanghai, not only did Ricciardo make the end of the race, he scored his first points since becoming a Renault driver.

Ricciardo says that he was just happy to get to the flag despite an impressive seventh-place finish, finishing behind the top three teams only as best of the rest.

“It feels good. Probably just for my guys in the garage as well – we hadn’t seen a chequered flag yet," he said after the race.

“So for them a couple high fives going around. So it is good that they can fly home with a smile on their face.”

His Renault teammate Nico Hulkenberg was not so lucky however, forced to retire for the second time this season with yet another MGU-K issue.

Team boss Cyril Abiteboul has already accepted that the start to 2019 has not been good enough but also conceded it could be a while before Renault can fix all of its issues and catch the top teams in F1.