" I hope to be the one doing a lot of passing," says the Aussie
Tuesday 25 November 2014 17:46, UK
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo is aiming to again prove Formula 1’s overtaking king on Sunday as he bids to recover from ninth on the Interlagos grid.
The Australian registered his joint-worst qualifying result of his overwhelmingly impressive season at Interlagos on Sunday after admitting pre-session set-up adjustments to a car he had been largely happy with through practice led to a “massive” negative change in his RB10’s balance.
With team-mate Sebastian Vettel’s weekend going in the opposite direction – the World Champion had appeared to struggle through practice but then qualified sixth as the lead non-Mercedes-powered runner – Ricciardo is therefore the Red Bull driver on the backfoot for a change.
Ricciardo, who felt he should have been challenging the Williams’ rather than qualifying between the two Ferraris at the foot of the top ten, is confident Sunday should be better, particularly if conditions prove as warm as they did on Friday when he showed Mercedes-matching long-run pace.
“I definitely think we’re going to have a chance to move forwards from ninth,” the Australian predicted. “To be honest, our low-fuel pace [before qualy] was pretty good and the long-run pace was even better. We hope now that because we were slow in the short runs it doesn’t that affect as well on the long runs.
“We hope to be quick. I feel if the track’s hot and hard on the reals, as it was yesterday, I think we’ll be better off. But obviously starting ninth we’ve got a bit of work to do, so confident to move forward, but obviously would have loved to have started further up the grid.”
In his first season at a top-line F1 team it has been Ricciardo’s swashbuckling overtaking skills that have repeatedly caught the eye, with his successful first-corner lunge on Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso just seven days ago in Austin the most recent impressive example.
With Interlagos habitually a circuit where drivers can overtake, particularly on the long curved run to Turn One and also the backstraight, Ricciardo is eyeing some more scalps over the course of the 71 laps of racing.
“As you have seen in the past you can overtake. It’s a good DRS zone, it creates some good opportunity, and then out of Turn Three,” he explained.
“Into Turn Ten you can pass as well, so I hope to be the one doing a lot of passing. I’m confident we can. Even though we are bit down [on top speed] on the straights, we are good on braking, so we’ll have some fun.”
The 25-year-old is also hopeful his getaway at the lights will be better than was the case in Austin, when he dropped from fifth to seventh on the first lap.
“I hope so. I mean I think ninth is already far back enough so we don’t want to go further back than that! To be honest, the practice we’ve done this week they’ve all been pretty good,” Ricciardo added.
“I think we’ve been genuinely happier this week than we were last for example, so let’s see how we go. Finger’s crossed that we move forward.”
Red Bull’s lead car on the grid, meanwhile, Vettel conceded that the height of Red Bull’s ambitions around Interlagos may be the fifth place that McLaren’s Jenson Button currently occupies on the grid.
“I would hope that we can beat the McLaren. I was very close to Jenson in qualifying, so that should be possible,” the four-times World Champion outlined.
“I think the first four cars are quite a bit quicker than us, but than I think it’s fairly close between us, Ferrari and McLaren, So it will be an interesting day which could mix things up, which if it happens, hopefully makes us closer to the top four.”
