Ricciardo: Bottas FP2 block not worth a penalty

Daniel Ricciardo does not think that Valtteri Bottas' block during second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday night is worth a penalty despite saying the move was "not cool".

While on his qualifying simulation lap during FP2 at the Bahrain International Circuit, Ricciardo came across a slow-moving Bottas heading through Turn 4, and opted to try and pass the Mercedes driver around the outside of the corner.

Bottas did not appear to be aware of Ricciardo, causing him to squeeze the Red Bull on exit and the two drivers to brush lightly. Both made it away without any damage, but Ricciardo did swear over the team radio about the move.

Despite his frustration, Ricciardo said he did not think Bottas' move deserved a penalty, saying it would set a bad precedent for the future.

"No, I don’t want him to get a penalty. It is not cool, but I don’t want them to give penalties for this," Ricciardo said.

"I don’t think any of the drivers agreed with my penalty last week, so I don’t want to start that game. I believe he wasn’t told on the radio so it probably was not his fault.

"It was frustrating of course, but I try not to get too fired up, it is only practice. It compromised our low fuel run.

"This afternoon we made some changes and it was not as good as this morning, so we will go back. I don’t think we will go completely back to the morning but try and find a happy medium.

"It was not bad. The morning was pretty strong. The evening session not so much. We made some changes."

Ricciardo placed at the top of the timesheets in opening practice for Red Bull, but dropped to sixth in FP2, finishing nine-tenths of a second back from Kimi Raikkonen at the front of the field.

Asked if he needed to gamble on strategy for a chance to win in Bahrain, Ricciardo said: "I don’t think we need a different strategy. We just need to get happier with the balance.

"We tried to improve the car this evening, it didn’t work, so we will just get the balance right and it will be okay."