Daniel Ricciardo admits he has no idea where Red Bull’s pace came from in today’s qualifying session after setting the second fastest time.
Ricciardo pulled out a stunning lap to beat the two Ferrari drivers to a front row grid slot, the second time he has started on the front row in China.
The Australian is on a different tyre strategy to pole sitter Nico Rosberg, who starts on the more durable soft tyre, compared with Ricciardo’s choice of super-softs.
Nevertheless, Ricciardo thought challenging for the first two rows would be difficult, but hopes to make the most of the opportunity on Sunday.
“I’m not sure. To be honest the qualifying – I didn’t think we started in the best position in Q1 in terms of it being a disrupted session,” said Ricciardo.
“Just with the balance we didn’t seem like we were really going to be in a fight with the front few rows today and then in Q3 we found a bit more speed.
“The option here, the super-soft, it’s a tricky tyre to manage.
“To get the one lap out of it is not exactly easy, it gets chewed up quite a bit as the lap goes on.
“I think just understanding that as the session goes on and obviously between me understanding a bit more what to do on track and the engineer making a few adjustments with pressures and front wing and I think we got a good package at the end and second is pretty awesome, we didn’t expect this.”
