Ricciardo could win the championship

(Florent Gooden DPPI for Renault Sport F1)

Infiniti Red Bull Racing's rising star Daniel Ricciardo still has a very real opportunity to win the season's Formula One world champion after the Australian took his third win of the season and second race win in a row in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa Francorchamps circuit. The Red Bull driver took victory by 3.3s from Mercedes Nico Rosberg to close the gap in the champion to Lewis Hamilton to 35 points with seven Grand Prix remaining this season.

Ricciardo has had a sensational season with Infiniti Red Bull Racing and for the most part has left team mate reigning quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel in the shadows. Vettel did a fantastic job in qualifying on Saturday to be best of the rest behind the Mercedes duo and battled at the front but was eventually beaten by Ricciardo who started the race from 5th place on the grid.

The Australian has now taken six podium finishes so far this season including three victories in Montreal, Canada, Hungary and the Belgian Grand Prix despite the fact that Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner stated that he felt that the reigning world champion's best opportunity to take another race win would be at the Singapore night race in September. Horner made his comments prior to the Belgian Grand Prix and was surprised but delighted with Ricciardo's victory.

Ricciardo took his first podium finish of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix in May when he finished the race in third place and followed this up with another third place at the Monaco Grand Prix. 

The Australian believes that if the team can keep up their level of performance for the rest of the season and with double point's for the final race at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that he can still win the championship as he is now following his victory 64 point's behind championship leader Nico Rosberg with a maximum of 200 points available from the final seven Grand Prix of the season.

Ricciardo has also done a fantastic job going up against Sebastian Vettel at Infiniti Red Bull Racing and currently leads the German by 58 point's and is three places above Vettel in the championship. 

As a result of the victory Infiniti Red Bull Racing are 94 point's ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors championship and are 157 point's behind championship leaders Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team.

© Ben Johnston 2014