Daniel Ricciardo believes Red Bull will be quick enough to fight for their first pole position for two years in Monaco.
“It’ll be like ’16,” said Ricciardo, referring to his sole career pole position at the track two years ago, which was the last time a Red Bull started from pole.
“Obviously we’re not there but if the car’s hooked up, we’ll be OK. If I put together a good lap we should be alright.”
Red Bull weren’t contenders for victory in Monaco 12 months ago but Ricciardo says their current chassis is “better than last year’s car.”“Last year we weren’t quick enough here to fight for the victory but I feel we’re kind of where we were at in 2016 now. We’re still probably not the quickest car but we can be if we get it all hooked up I think we can be pretty good.”
Ricciardo was 0.645 seconds off pole position at the last race in Spain but he believes most of that deficit comes from the team’s power unit.
“Around here if we lost five-tenths in Barcelona maybe we lose two here. But a bit of confidence and a good set-up and two-tenths can come pretty quickly on a track like this. If we’re dialled in I think we can still do it.”
The new hyper-soft is being used for the first time this weekend. Ricciardo hopes it provides better instant grip than the ultra-soft used last year.
“Hopefully what it will do is allow us to get the first lap done,” he said. “A lot of the years we’ve been building and then pushing. Hopefully the tyre’s good out of the box and it’ll feel like a real qualifying tyre.
“I watched Kimi [Raikkonen’s] onboard yesterday, of [his 2017] pole, and you can see even then the tyres don’t look like they’re in. The front’s pushing, it didn’t actually look that pretty. So I think the hyper-soft will be nice for everyone.”
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marcelh
23rd May 2018, 18:18
So can Williams,Haas, McLaren, torro rosso etc etc etc
Mach1 (@mach1)
23rd May 2018, 18:24
If the Williams steers as bad as they say it does (i.e like a boat) I would not put it past Stroll and Sirotkin to both put it in the wall in quali.
James (@alebelly)
23rd May 2018, 20:52
To be honest, I think the Red Bull car is by far the most visually appealing, and the drivers aren’t so bad themselves. Now that is some race analysis to write home about!
Jon (@johns23)
24th May 2018, 2:22
Lets wait and see. a wheel hasn’t even turned yet and people are already claiming pole is a certainty for Red Bull