By Alan Baldwin
NURBURG, GERMANY - Daniel Ricciardo celebrated his first Renault Formula One podium on Sunday with a private champagne 'shoey' while pondering what kind of tattoo to inflict on team boss Cyril Abiteboul.
The Australian finished third in the Eifel Grand Prix at Germany's Nuerburgring for Renault's first podium since the French carmaker returned as a constructor in 2016 and his first since 2018, when he was at Red Bull.
Ricciardo had talked earlier in the year about missing the 'Shoey', the act of drinking the podium champagne from a sweaty boot, but when the moment came it slipped his mind in the excitement.
To make up for it, he posted a video on Instagram of the forgotten deed.
"The shoe is off. I think I was so caught up in the podium and obviously it's been a while. Everyone afterwards was like 'why didn't you do a shoey?'," he said, holding his boot up to the camera before pouring in the bubbly.
"I was like 'oh, man'. So anyway, here it is. Belated but better late than never."
"Mother's milk," he declared, after swigging it down.
Ricciardo, who is joining McLaren at the end of the season, said the podium felt like his first with Red Bull in 2014 all over again.
"The feeling I have now is like that really happy shock," he told Sky Sports television.
"It's been two and a half years since I had a podium and its really nice. When we signed on the dotted line for this Renault contract it was to be up here and get a podium by year two and we've achieved that.
"We're moving on but this really does still cap a pretty cool story we've had for these two years and the good news is that it's not over yet."
Happy shock was probably also the best way to describe Abiteboul, the boss having agreed last year that he would get a tattoo of the Australian's choosing if Ricciardo finished on the podium for the team.
The driver made clear there would be no let off.
"It's real, it's going to happen," he said. "We'll have to do some thinking now but probably something to do with me but with a German flavour.
"This is obviously the place we did it so a little tip of the hat to something traditional in Germany as well."
Reuters