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Daniel Ricciardo expressed his happiness after charging to fourth place at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ricciardo started from 13th on the grid after 10 place penalty but battled his way through the midfield - including a pass on Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
"It was an awesome race; it was exciting," he said.
"I think the first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards, the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind – it was good to be a part of them.
"We got close to the podium today, I think within half a second, so I was doing all I could. The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day.
"It was good fun to race Sebastian, it was hard but fair and we left each other room. That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand, we’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing."
Vettel ended the race in sixth place and conceded that he didn't extract the maximum from his RB10.
"I think it was a busy race today, especially at the end after the safety car, but it’s a shame we couldn’t get further up," he said.
"Daniel proved that there was a little bit more to get from the car today, I couldn’t really get to that bit, so I’m not so happy with my day. For some reason we seemed to be really slow on the straights, and not just against the Mercedes. Mercedes has a stronger package, so there’s work ahead of us. It was straight forward with Daniel today, we worked well together as a team and we raced well, but surely I would like to have finished higher up."
