Following his unexpected Chinese GP triumph, the Australian travelled back to England, where he first spent some time in the Red Bull Racing simulator, before heading to London for a surgical procedure on an infected wound on his lip.

It wasn't until the end of the week that he finally returned home to Monaco to continue his recovery.

"It took me five days to get back to Monaco after winning in Shanghai, and it seriously felt like I was on the go for all five," he wrote in a column on the Red Bull website.

"I wish I had some decent stories of crazy three-day parties and that sort of thing to share with you, but it was about as uneventful as celebrations get.

"I was on multiple flights connecting the night after the race, went straight into the Red Bull Racing factory at Milton Keynes, had time in the simulator, and then I had to get some minor surgery.

"I had this weird thing with my lip happen in Bahrain the weekend before where I bit it, and it must have got infected or something because I kept biting it over and over.

"So I had to get that taken out and stitched back up in London, so that – and a fair bit of talking about China – was basically the week after Shanghai.

"I got back to Monaco last Friday, where I could finally put my feet up."

Ricciardo also reflected on that unlikely win in China, admitting that he spent the final few laps of the race incredibly nervous that his Renault engine would suffer another failure.

"I'd been pretty quiet on the radio until that time as I was passing people, so I asked [race engineer] Simon [Rennie] how far we had to go once I'd taken the lead, and couldn't believe it was still 11 laps or so," he added.

"What was I supposed to do with 11 laps? I pushed initially to create a gap, but then started managing it, and that's when your mind can start to wander.

"You have all this adrenaline after a carrot like a race win gets dangled in front of you, and then it's like 'what now?'

"Driving on the limit is easier. You're much more present. The day before, we'd had the turbo failure, so every time I started on that long back straight in China on those last 11 laps I was thinking 'I hope I don't hear any funny noises like yesterday …'.

"When you start to cruise and manage a gap, you think about that sort of thing."