Ricciardo excited for ‘fun’ German GP fightback

Daniel Ricciardo says he mentally prepared himself for taking a Formula 1 engine penalty at this weekend’s German Grand Prix and is looking forward to “having fun” in the race. 

The Red Bull driver set the pace in opening practice at the Hockenheimring but is due to start Sunday’s grand prix from the very back of the grid with power unit changes resulting in a spate of penalties. 

Ricciardo remained in a positive mood despite the penalty and has set himself a bold target of a podium finish in Germany, which he said would feel “like a win”. 

“The priority today was to try and get a good race set up because we are going to be coming through a few guys on Sunday so we prioritised that,” Ricciardo explained. 

“It’s more frustrating when [a grid penalty] happens a day before or something, so I could prepare myself and I’m actually pretty excited to come through the back and have a bit of fun. 

“I was aware I was probably going to take the penalty here, so now I just look at it as a fun Sunday coming through the field,” he added. “That is the plan. I’ll try and get as far up as I can and if you get a podium from the back it’s like a win. So that is my target.”

Ricciardo was encouraged by the pace he was able to demonstrate during second practice as he focused on long run simulations, knowing that qualifying will be effectively made redundant by his looming grid drop. 

“I’ll find the right perspective from it all,” he said. “The race run now looked pretty decent, the car seems pretty strong, so see how we’ll go tomorrow. Don’t know how much we’ll run but we’ll just try and base ourselves on the race sims.

Teammate Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton to the fastest time in the afternoon session by just 0.026s, but saw his running disrupted by an oil leak that left him garage-bound for much of the final 30 minutes or so. 

The Dutchman returned to the track in the final moments of FP2 to ensure Red Bull had rectified the problem and later confirmed everything felt “fine” in his RB14. 

When asked if he thinks Red Bull can challenge Ferrari and Mercedes for victory in Germany, Verstappen replied: “I don’t know yet. 

“I haven’t really done a proper run in the second practice but from our car side it all works quite well. I’m happy about that but we will have to see in qualifying because that will define a lot. 

“We can still improve, my lap was a bit compromised as I had traffic,” he added. “I hope that tomorrow we can be close and maybe with the weather, we will see what happens. 

“It’s a good Friday, better than expected so hopefully we can keep the momentum going.”