Ricciardo doing his best to give F1 fans hope

For various reasons in 2016, the two horse race between the Mercedes team-mates has never really materialised on the track.

There simply hasn’t been much of an on track duel between the pair and when there briefly was, it ended in the gravel trap within a few hundred metres.

The way Grand Prix weekends have played out, either Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton have proved victorious, with the other either struggling or not putting up much of a fight.

In the closing stages of the Singapore Grand Prix however, spectators at the street circuit and watching on television had a race to the chequered flag.

Due to brake issues, Lewis Hamilton couldn’t challenge the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo and eventually would slip behind the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen as well.

In a bid to get the Brit back on to the podium, Mercedes made a pit-stop, the first domino to fall in a bid to undercut the Ferrari – it worked, but it also gave Ricciardo the chance of a free pit-stop and chase down Rosberg on fresh faster tyres.

The gap fell lap, after lap by 2.5seconds until Ricciardo got within less than a second on the final lap, but it wasn’t to be.

‘I’m not going to stand here and be disappointed, I am pretty happy – I did all I could.

‘Obviously the strategy still didn’t give us victory, but it was good fun to push to the last lap and know I was at least putting some pressure on, and giving the crowd some hope. Ricciardo told formula1.com.

‘If anything could have been more perfect it was the start, but even with an amazing start I don’t think we would have got the jump [on Rosberg].

‘We’ve come close [to a win in 2016] on numerous occasions, we gave it a good shot and got within half a second.’