Daniel Ricciardo loved battle with Hamilton for Austrian podium

Getting the jump on Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen at the start, Ricciardo kept the pace with leading pair Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel in the early stages, never really in trouble from behind.

But in the closing stages, after Hamilton too got the jump on Raikkonen, the Mercedes driver began to eat up the gap between himself and the Red Bull Racing man.

With five laps to go, the pair were dicing for position, though Hamilton only made one bold move for third place on the penultimate lap before settling for fourth, allowing Ricciardo to take his fifth podium in a row at the team's home circuit.

Ricciardo roared over the team radio after crossing the line, and admitted afterwards he relished the battle with Hamilton.

“I do love a fight and Lewis came out of nowhere in the last few laps," he said. "It felt like the gap was stable and then within a handful of laps he was catching me pretty rapidly.

"I then had two laps to go and had to defend which made it a pretty exciting race for me. To have good speed around here in dry conditions was a pleasant surprise for us.

"I had Seb in front of me pretty much for the whole race and I know that his long runs on Friday looked quite a lot quicker than ours so we didn’t really expect to have a similar race pace to him or Mercedes today. Just to hold Lewis off, have a fight, defend and come out in front was cool. Another podium is pretty sweet."