Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo has won the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time in his career at the end of last May. In next round he will get back aboard his RB14 car again this weekend for the Canadian GP.
Team-mate Max Verstappen was fastest man on the track during both the FP1 and FP2 sessions of the Canadian Grand Prix. He beat Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, who ended fourth and sixth fastest.
However, Ricciardo admitted that Mercedes’s pace was too much for Red Bull during their FP2 in Gilles Villeneuve Circuit on Saturday morning.
“I would say that Mercedes’ pace was really fast today. Even on the harder tyre, they were still doing pretty good lap times.” Ricciardo told reporters.
“I think they’ll be at this stage hard to beat, but I think we can still improve the car a lot, do more laps, learn a bit more and I think we’ll be OK.
“I guess that fight will be with Ferrari, too early to really know, but I’m sure Mercedes will be really fast tomorrow afternoon.” Ricciardo added.
Ricciardo has two wins this season, the same as Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. He beat two leaders at Monaco GP despite an issue with his power unit.
When asked if Red Bull is getting frustrated by Renault’s issues, the Aussie said: “We had some problems this morning, they tried to fix it during lunch, but it didn’t improve.”
“We have the B-spec engine this weekend, the upgrade, and I think just configurating a few things on that, we’re not necessarily aligned, so we just had to go through a little bit of trial and error. A little bit obviously frustrating not get many laps, but the problem doesn’t seem dramatic.” Ricciardo added.
Daniel Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen leads in FP1 and FP2 in Canada. (Source:www.autos.id)
Verstappen, meanwhile, he admitted now is a big task to try and get turned around for qualifying despite engine’s issues. However, he has predicted that Mercedes will be strong again and will be leading the race after Q3.
“It’s still difficult to say, because you’re not going flat out on the engine yet. I think I can tell you tomorrow,” Verstappen said.
“In terms of pole position, I think Mercedes will be very strong again. Our car works well, but whether that will be enough in Q3, I don’t know.” Verstappen added.
