Ricciardo’s happy he’s finally got his girl.

He recorded the fastest lap time in the second practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday night, and now he’s got a shiny new custom made helmet to wear when he takes to the track in the main race on Sunday night (10pm AEST).

While he didn’t take the paint brush to the protective gear himself, he did have one important request that he wanted the artist responsible to take heed of.

“I love motocross, supercross, and they give out the 30-second board for example, and the grid girl stands there and holds the board, pretty much as she’s posing,” Ricciardo said in a video tweeted by Red Bull Racing while pointing at the picture of a grid girl painted on the top of his helmet.

“So I thought why don’t I get a girl, sailor style — because obviously we’re in Monaco around the harbour — and have my number (3) on it.

“That was the part I wanted.

“This is the lid I’ll probably use and I hope it goes fast.

“She’s rooting for me so we’ll see how we go.”

The rest of the new design was inspired by the surroundings and lifestyle associated with the glitzy playground for the rich and famous located on the French Riviera.

“It’s got a vintage Riviera look and some chrome and some stereotypical things of Monaco,” Ricciardo said. “Boats and poker and sun and all the rest of it.”

“You little beauty! Fresh new lid for tomorrow,” he wrote on his Facebook page along with photos of the helmet.

Ricciardo hasn’t been all smiles since he arrived in picturesque Monaco though, even if he did have success during practice.

The Aussie got stuck behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen during a hot lap and let his anger out with a one-fingered salute on the track, then he let everyone know what he really thought of the Fin when he got back to the pits.

Clearly unimpressed with being forced to lag behind Raikkonen as he tried to test the limits of his new power unit, it’s pretty obvious the two won’t be on each other’s Christmas card list this year.

“What a c*** of a bloke,” Ricciardo said.

After coming fourth in his last race in Barcelona, he will be hoping for an improved showing this weekend. He accused his team of “throwing the win away” in Spain when they switched him to a three pit-stop strategy on lap 28 while leading the race, and he was forced to watch on as newly-promoted teammate Max Verstappen went on to win his first ever grand prix.

He also came fourth in Melbourne, Bahrain and China — the latter result coming despite suffering a punctured tyre early on — but he admitted he was sick of just missing out on podium finishes.

“It (Barcelona) is my fourth fourth for the season out of five races,” Ricciardo said.

“The first two races I was happy with fourth, now I’m definitely over it.”