Ricciardo ‘not bitter’ to only be sixth in Canadian GP qualifying

Daniel Ricciardo said he is “frustrated but not bitter” about his Canadian Grand Prix qualifying result after ending up slowest of the leading Formula 1 runners in Montreal.

Ricciardo has struggled to match Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen all weekend so far in Canada, with the Ducthman topping all three practice sessions before sealing third place on the grid, beating the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton in the process. 

The Australian led the way in Q2 but ultimately ended up 0.5s off Sebastian Vettel’s pole position effort and 0.2s further back from Verstappen in sixth. Despite his frustrations, Ricciardo believes he got the most out of his run.

“I’m a bit frustrated to be at the tail-end but I think honestly with what we had we didn’t do a bad job,” Ricciardo said. “Obviously the others did better but I’m not bitter or anything I did honestly the best I could. 

“The top six is always what we are fighting for but we are at the tail-end of that. It’s obviously not that satisfying but I actually feel that in qualifying we made a lot of progress. 

“We struggled pretty much all weekend for some rhythm. We struggled yesterday and even this morning in qualifying with some issues. I felt we were always one step back and we got our stuff together in qualifying. It felt like the laps were move than sixth place but they weren’t.”

Both Red Bull drivers will start Sunday’s grand prix on the Hypersoft compound, after rivals Mercedes and Ferrari opted to split strategies and run the Ultrasoft tyre in Q2. Ricciardo says he is looking to take advantage of the faster, grippier Pirelli rubber to make some early progress. 

“We feel that we can manage the situation a little better and even though Max was quick all through practice we still felt the chance of pole was a bit of an outside shot,” he explained. 

“So we knew we’d probably have cars to overtake, particularly at the beginning and starting on the Hypersoft could give us that opportunity. We felt if we did the same as the others it would just put us in the running sequence of everyone so this is why we are going to try it and hopefully it works.”