Daniel Ricciardo says Toro Rosso must make improvements to their package if they are to achieve his objective of a top ten starting spot on Saturday. The Australian was only sixteenth today and is hoping the modifications planned for final practice will move him closer to the frontrunners.
“I really enjoy street circuits and this one in particular, however, this morning we were slower than we had hoped and expected to be. I’m sure if we find some more speed for Saturday then it will be even more enjoyable. Jev and I weren’t running the same settings and there is still a bit to come from myself as well, because you can always find a bit more performance from the driver on a street circuit.
“We now have one more day than usual to analyse everything and we also have some modifications we can make for Saturday. I am confident we can improve and I am still looking at getting into the top ten, but we have a bit of work to do to achieve that. As for the tyres, it’s the usual story that the Supersoft is quicker and the Soft is more consistent, but I do think that running Sunday’s race on a one stop strategy could prove more difficult than last year.”
Teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was one place further back in seventeenth but doesn’t feel they are struggling as much as the leaderboard would suggest, especially when it comes to race pace.
“It was a good day with a lot of laps completed. At this circuit, driver confidence is an important factor and you gain in confidence with every lap you do, feeling you can push harder every time. My last long run looked pretty good at the end of the afternoon session. Now we need to put all the best elements together so that we can improve our overall performance and I believe we can do well on Saturday, much better than the story told in today’s time sheet.”
