Ricciardo: It's just so hard to overtake on street circuits

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo echoed the voices of other drivers on the grid by pressing home the importance of qualifying on street circuits, after he converted his sixth place in qualifying into a P6 in the Singapore Grand Prix proper on Sunday.

The Aussie was marooned behind Kimi Raikkonen for much of the race with no pressure coming from behind, and couldn't get close enough to the Finn to attempt any overtaking manoeuvres.

The race itself was low-key as the qualifying positions in most cases held, and speaking to journalists after the race Ricciardo conceded that his team were prepared for the position they found themselves in.

He said: "I would have liked to have worked harder, in terms of, fought for something more. I think if you listen to what Seb [Vettel] and Lewis [Hamilton] complained about in Monaco, not being on pole, that is what I would say.

“[With] street circuits, qualifying is so important and it is just so hard to, not only, overtake, but to follow now. I had better pace, particularly at the end, to catch Kimi [Raikkonen] and Valtteri [Bottas].

“However, I couldn’t do anything with it. You get close but not close enough.”

Ricciardo doubled down on his frustration at being unable to overtake, hinting that it may be something F1 will need to consider remedying going forward.

He added: “If they defend a little bit then there is really no chance. Hoped for a better race but that was the race we expected.

“I was trying to play a little bit with Kimi, I saw he was on the back of Valtteri so I would push up to him and see if I could do something. I couldn’t so I would back off and then try again. So yeah, just trying to do something because sitting behind, there wasn’t much to do.”