Daniel Ricciardo has stated that he expected to start to qualify a bit high up the grid in Germany after the Australian qualified fifth. Once again, Ricciardo out-qualified teammate Sebastian Vettel however he was hoping for more.
“It wasn’t too bad today, we would like to be further forward than fifth, but the lap I did was pretty good. I made quite an improvement in Q3 from Q2 so I can’t really argue with the lap I did, but as a team we are still a bit off”
Ricciardo expect’s to be fighting for a podium positions however he expects many teams and drivers to be involved.
“We know the Mercedes is strong, but the Williams was also continually showing their pace today and the McLaren with Kevin was good, so we have to keep working but we did what we could. I think the race will be close between the top eight tomorrow and it will be a battle for the final podium spot.”
Team boss Christian Horner admits the lack of straight line speed in the second sector hampered his team’s chances of beating the Mercedes powered cars today.
“Fifth and sixth are probably about the maximum amount we could get in qualifying today. We are very competitive in sections 1 and 3, but unfortunately the middle sector really seems to favour the Mercedes powered cars here in Hockenheim. Nonetheless, both drivers did the best they could to extract the most they could out of the car and hopefully in tomorrow’s race in these hot conditions, we can progress from fifth and sixth on the grid.”
Red Bull have yet to win at the Hockenheimring.
