Daniel Ricciardo felt the opportunity was there to take his second pole position of the season only for a spin by Fernando Alonso to cost him that chance at the Hungaroring on Saturday.
The Australian felt he was on course to better the pole time set by Nico Rosberg on his final flying lap onto to have an errant McLaren heavily compromise the Red Bull Racing driver, meaning Ricciardo will start the Hungarian Grand Prix from third on the grid.
Despite the setback of losing the potential pole, Ricciardo was delighted to have a strong car during qualifying, which he hopes bodes well on race day on Sunday.
“When I saw Fernando had spun in Turn 9, I was furious as I was up on my lap by quite a bit and when I heard Nico’s pole time, then the time was definitely there,” said Ricciardo.
“How affected him or Lewis [Hamilton] were [by the yellow flag], I don’t know, but I think we had better than a 19.9 in us. We don’t get many opportunities to get a pole from Mercedes, but I thought today there was definitely a chance.
“But, the positives are that we were quick, we had good pace and I was happy with the car. I was happy with it yesterday and I think we found even more speed for today, so hopefully that means good things for tomorrow.
“It was fun with the changing conditions, I really enjoyed it; let’s say I embraced the conditions from the start. It was crazy, there was aquaplaning, spray, it was really hairy and the adrenalin was flowing. It was drying very fast and we had to adapt and be on it, it was cool.”
