Ricciardo not disappointed to lose FP2 qualifying sim

Daniel Ricciardo insists he has no concerns over losing the opportunity to complete a representative qualifying simulation run during second practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. 

The Red Bull driver’s only Ultrasoft flying lap was scuppered when the afternoon session was disrupted by a red flag after a timing wire became loose on the start-finish straight. It meant Ricciardo finished FP2 seventh-quickest, while teammate Max Verstappen managed to get within 0.2s of Friday pacesetter Lewis Hamilton. 

Ricciardo, who played down the importance of missing his Ultrasoft run, has been summoned to see the stewards after he was found to have driven too fast under red flag conditions. 

“I was not too disappointed to see the red flag, I don’t think the lap was that good,” he explained. "It was okay. It was not a bad day. The long runs were more representative, or better, I was probably happier with them. 

“The short runs, we still have a bit to find with the car, so that ultra soft run on low fuel before the red flag – I had quite a lot of understeer. 

“So I was a bit quicker than my soft time up until then, but it was not going to jump to P1 or anything like that. So we still have a bit of work to do.”

The Australian said he is hoping for the predicted forecast of rain during Saturday to prove correct, as he believes a wet weather qualifying would increase Red Bull’s chances of challenging Mercedes. 

“Tomorrow is going to be wet, so I don’t know how relevant today is. I don’t think it [rain] will hurt. We always enjoy some wet weather. It kind of evens everything out. Today in the dry we did not look too bad, which is good. 

“I think the wet will gives us potentially a bit more of a chance. The last wet qualifying we had here was 2014 and that was not too bad. Hopefully we can try and do that again.”