Ricciardo feels he’s “due a good one” in Melbourne this year

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo is yet to officially finish on the podium at his home race and feels he’s “due a good one” in Melbourne this year after suffering an early exit at the opening race of 2019.

Ricciardo has had a mixed bag of results in Australia, finishing in the points with Toro Rosso in his debut race down under in 2012, retiring the next year and then losing his second place finish in 2014 due to a fuel flow issue on his Red Bull.
 
No Australian has ever finished on the podium in Melbourne and the closest the 30-year old has come has been his fourth place finishes from 2016 and 2018.
 
“I guess there haven’t been many Australians [in F1],” he said on Thursday why no Australian has reached the podium.

“It’s a game of percentages, right? I hope this one’s good. I feel like one year’s pretty good, one year’s not. I think I’m due a good one.”

Three-time race winner in Melbourne Sebastian Vettel joked that his “biggest advantage was that he wasn’t Australian, to which Ricciardo replied: “The irony is that my best year was the year you [retired] in Australia and then it [my podium] got taken away. I’m still bitter!”

Many believe that Renault could be a dark horse for the 2020 season with their driver line-up of Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon.

The Australian says he feels more comfortable in the car than he did 12 months prior.

“I think the test ended well for us," said Ricciardo. "Day 3 Week 2 was a lot more promising and from both my feedback and Esteban's, you could see our expression when we got out of the car, it was certainly more [optimistic] and that was encouraging.

“Looking back to last year and the build-up and everything, I was watching some onboards before and I could see me from the outside and I’m like ‘yeah I’m a lot more comfortable in this car now’.

“[I’m] Looking forward to seeing what I can do.”