Daniel Ricciardo felt he made the decision to switch from the Intermediate Pirelli tyre to the slick too late during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, which left him with only one lap to set a time at the end of the session.
The Red Bull Racing driver ended seventh fastest will inherit fifth on the grid as a result of penalties for Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel, and is looking for a strong race on Sunday, especially as he will be starting on the Supersoft tyre rather than the Ultrasoft that was favoured by the pace setting Mercedes team.
“It was quite fun coming into Q3 knowing that it was going to be wet and I like it when you have to adapt quite quickly,” said Ricciardo. “We got out on the intermediates and started with a pretty good pace and I was happy, but I knew it was going to dry by the end of the session and the slick tyres were going to be better.
“In hindsight I would have liked to have come in a bit earlier and at least had two laps on the slick tyre so that’s probably where we missed out in getting those extra few positions.
“I think I’ll start fifth now from some of the penalties, which is alright and we did well in Q2. We got through on the Supersofts so that hopefully pays dividends tomorrow and we can be closer to our rivals.”
