Ricciardo “still smiling” after ‘best lap’ of F1 2020 at Imola

Daniel Ricciardo has hailed his final qualifying lap for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as his best of the 2020 Formula 1 season.

Ricciardo will start fifth in Sunday's race at Imola.

While it wasn’t Ricciardo’s best qualifying result of the season - P4 at the Belgian Grand Prix is his best grid position in 2020 - the Australian described his final Q3 lap as his best of the campaign.

“That was wow. I’m still smiling,” Ricciardo said. “That was such a fun lap. I’m very happy with the lap and the result. Even that aside, pushing the cars around here, doing those lap times, is fun. It’s a serious circuit, it really is.

“It’s that combination, it’s narrow, it’s tight, it’s fast. There’s chicanes, but chicanes you can attack the kerbs. Not sure what it is with race cars and race drivers, something about taking kerbs and really throwing the car around, it shows a bit of personality in a way.

“Felt like a fun ragged aggressive session which we could manhandle. Q3 was awesome, that lap was my best Q3 one of the year.”

Ricciardo has his sights set on Pierre Gasly, who qualified an impressive fourth for AlphaTauri.

“I didn’t really get a long run in this morning, so I don’t think we know too much tomorrow, but saying that, everyone is in the same boat – I’m not too concerned,” Ricciardo added. “Gasly is a target. If we can get him at the start, fourth is a serious chance for us.

“That’s what we’ll try and capitalise on tomorrow. As fun as it was today, do think it’s going to be trickier in the race as far as overtaking…it is narrow, hard to find an alternate line when following a car. Qualified well, that’s box number one ticked. We’ll try and execute a good 300-400m tomorrow.”