After a troublesome Friday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Daniel Ricciardo was able to qualify sixth on the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix, with the Australian feeling he got pretty close to a perfect lap.
With Red Bull Racing facing a power deficit compared to the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Scuderia Ferrari team this weekend, especially in qualifying conditions, Ricciardo knew he would likely be battling team-mate Max Verstappen for positions on the third row of the grid, and the duo were just 0.154 seconds apart.
Unfortunately for Ricciardo, that advantage went to his Dutch team-mate, but he was relatively happy to come back strongly after losing a lot of track time on Friday.
“Things didn’t really go to plan yesterday, but we had a lot of laps on track this morning in FP3 and understood a lot more,” said Ricciardo. “For Qualifying even though we ended up at the tail end of the top six I still felt we were actually in the hunt.
“We have put ourselves in a good position to at least race with Max so I can’t ask for too much more. The last run I would have loved to improve so there was maybe a tenth in that, but other than that I think we got the most out of it.”
Ricciardo looks back at the 2014 race at the same circuit that he came through to win having started from sixth, and he hopes lightning can strike twice on Sunday.
“I’m no Einstein but three years ago I finished first and started on sixth,” said the Australian. “I will be starting on sixth again tomorrow so that’s easy maths, am I right?”
