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Daniel Ricciardo says that extending the life of his Option tyres enabled him to salvage fifth place from the Italian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo started from ninth but slipped to 13th at the start, from where he battled back, including a late move on Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
"The strategy helped today, it kept the tyres fresh enough to go those extra few laps at the end," he said.
"I saw the cars in front of me pit and the pace was still good enough, so seeing that we didn’t have great pace when we were out of position then we thought we would try something different and that’s why we went long, which helped towards the end of the race.
"I was more comfortable with the prime tyre and was able to do some good moves, which kept me smiling. The start wasn’t ideal, it’s one of the longest runs up to Turn One here from the start line and it’s not a place where you want to have a bad one, but I dropped the clutch and didn’t get the traction, so we will have to look at that, but we kept a cool head and picked our way back through the field.
"I think fifth, even with a good start, was the best we could do."
