Infiniti Red Bull Racing drivers Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo say they still have time to gain after Friday practice for the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
For Vettel the day didn’t go as planned, with a gearbox issue meaning the German missed crucial laps in the afternoon, although he still put down the third best time on a 1:16.573 with 26 laps completed. Meanwhile in FP1, however, the four-time champion finished fourth, behind Fernando Alonso and both AMG Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
“It was a bit of a shame to lose some laps; we had something with the gearbox, but fortunately we got it checked and went out again,” said the man from Heppenheim. “It meant that we were maybe a bit off the rhythm compared to some of the others, but it seemed to be alright and we still got some good laps completed. I think there’s still a lot if improvement we can do, the Mercedes is very quick, but it was okay as a start to the weekend.”
Ricciardo, meanwhile, didn’t get his weekend off to the best of starts, with the Australian earning a reprimand for undertaking the Lotus-Renault of Pastor Maldonado in the pitlane. Despite that, however, he still set the sixth fastest time on a 1:18.435, setting a total of 26 laps, two less than Vettel. FP2 saw the boy from Perth finish twelve, despite the Aussie saying he enjoys driving the Circuit Île Notre-Dame/Gilles Villeneuve.
“The driving was good today, but looking at the time sheets we’ve got some work to do!” said the 24-year-old, who set a time of 1:17.644 in FP2. “We got some good references to go by and we need to put some work in tonight – I enjoy driving around here and there are a lot of fans in the grandstands. It seems that we’re close to some of the other teams, so we’ve just got to extract as much from the cars as we can over the weekend.”
