British GP: Ricciardo says Button needed one more lap for third

The Australian jumped ahead of the 2009 world champion with an earlier pitstop and ultimately denied the Briton a maiden home-race podium by less than a second.

Ricciardo had to make his hard-compound tyres last 37 laps after Red Bull switched him to a one-stop strategy mid-race, but he held on despite Button slashing an eight-second advantage to almost nothing in the final four laps.

"I think one more lap would have been tough because Jenson was coming," Ricciardo admitted.

"I'm really happy with the podium. I knew we were a better car than eighth on the grid.

"I was a bit surprised during the first bit to not be as quick so I said let's try something different to make it work.

"Today I was pretty jacked up, so it's nice to be up here."

BUTTON WANTED 'PERFECT PODIUM'

Button, who had started the race third and ran second in the early laps, reckoned another lap was all he needed because it would have put him within DRS range.

Despite missing out on the podium, he praised the progress made in the last two races to enable him to fight the Red Bulls and lone Ferrari of Fernando Alonso at a circuit he had expected to struggle.

"If I got DRS on the next lap it would've been easier" he said. "I would have given it a good go anyway.

"But it didn't happen. It would've been the perfect podium with Lewis up there and myself.

"We almost beat two Red Bulls and a Ferrari today, so that's a step forward. We didn't expect to be good here, we didn't expect to be OK round here.

"We expected to be reasonably bad round here; it was a bogey track for us.

"It doesn't matter where you expected to be, if you are so close to a podium and don't get it, you're upset."