Daniel Ricciardo has blamed the safety car for not being able to catch Sebastian Vettel during the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver finished second and just 1.478 seconds behind Vettel after pushing the three-time world champion throughout the race.

Ricciardo began to close in on the German as they both neared their first pit stops, but this was disrupted when the safety car was deployed following a collision between Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa.

The Australian felt this incident affected his chances of closing the gap on Vettel.

"I think if it wasn't for the Safety Car we would've gotten very close," Ricciardo told reporters. "In terms of the pit stop, maybe an undercut was possible. In the second stint, maybe he learnt from the first, backed us up and just went after that.

"Both Safety Cars came out at a pretty crucial time. Nonetheless his pace was good and it was quite representative of qualifying. We seemed to have been the two quickest cars today.

"We came here pretty confident. I'm always careful not to be overconfident, but the pace we showed all weekend was strong, the race pace was good and I think we matched Seb."

Ricciardo's teammate Daniil Kvyat finished sixth while Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was third.