Daniel Ricciardo admitted to being excited after qualifying on the front row for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday, and will start the race on the Supersoft tyre rather than the Ultrasoft that polesitter Nico Rosberg will use.
Despite his confidence for Sunday, Ricciardo knew Rosberg was on a different level during qualifying, ending more than half a second behind the Mercedes driver, but was happy that he got on top of some tyre issues that had been affecting him earlier in the weekend.
“I’m pleased with the front row,” revealed Ricciardo. “We set ourselves up well and the lap was clean, but obviously Nico created a big gap and I would have loved for him to not be that far ahead.
“Even with a perfect lap I don’t think we could have caught that up. So I did what I had to do and the last sector was good. I kept the tyres in good condition and that was important. That was a bit of a weakness earlier in the weekend so I was happy to get on top of that.”
Red Bull Racing put both Ricciardo and team-mate Max Verstappen onto the Supersoft in Q2, and the Australian believes that this call will work in their favour on race day at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, and he hopes to go one better and grab his first victory of the season.
“The Supersoft is what we’re going to start the race on and we seem to be the only team in the top ten doing that so hopefully it works for us,” said Ricciardo. “We did that in Monaco but then we didn’t get to see if it worked because of the rain on Sunday.
“If we can get the start we want I think we can control the situation tomorrow, but it’s not a predictable race. There are normally incidents and safety cars so it won’t be straightforward, but I feel good and ready to go. I’m excited.”
