Daniel Ricciardo believes his Chinese Grand Prix victory proves he is ready to fight for a Fo✱rmula 1 world championship title. 

The Red Bull driver made the most of a strategy gamble by his team to stop for fresh soft tyres duri🐬ng a mid-race Safety ඣCar and charged through from sixth to claim a remarkable win in Shanghai. 

A series of sublime overtakes on Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and erstwhile race-leader Valtteri Bottas helped Ricciardo seal a memorable fightback. His sixth win in F1 moved Ricciardo up to fourth in the drivers’ standings and just 17 points off current cham🎐pionship leader Vettel. 

“I reall🌺y feel like, I’ve said a few times, just give me the chance to be in a title hunt and I really believe I will take it,” Ricciardo said. “I feel like I can capitalise on opportunities and I guess [China] was a good example even with a fat lip I am still pretty fast and pretty good on a Sunday.”

At one stage it looked like Riccia🔜rdo may have to start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid, a🍎fter a suspected turbo failure towards the end of FP3 left his Red Bull mechanics with a two-hour window to complete an engine change before qualifying.

Ricciardo made it out with just minutes remaining in Q1, before going on to qualify sixth. The🐭 Australian admitted he would not have been able to win had his team not pulled off what Red Bull team principal Christian Horn🍸er labelled as a “miraculous” recovery. 

“I feel like a lot of the time you feel I don’t want  to say obliged to thank the team but it’s the nice thing to do. I really♚ sincerely mean it 100% with all my heart because without them [on Saturday] and without the strategy they wouldn’t have made it possible. 

“Two minutes later and we were starting the race from the back and I think it’s fair to say we wouldn’t have won from 🀅the back - so that helped us and then the strategy﷽ coming in under the safety car. I am sure the team feels as high as I do right now and I am super super thankful they helped me pull this off today.”