Team Talk - Friday in Monza

Red Bull

Motor Racing - Formula One World Championship - Italian Grand Prix - Practice Day - Monza, Italy

Daniel Ricciardo
“After today’s action I think we are more or less where we expected to be. I would like to be closer to Ferrari but we didn’t really find the times on the supersofts, though the softs felt competitive. I think tomorrow it will tighten up at the top even more. I expect Mercedes to lock out the front row and Ferrari look like the next best. Fifth and sixth for now is not too bad and gives us plenty to work on for tomorrow. Monza is a very high speed circuit so if you have the right race car you have the opportunity to overtake. Even if you’re a little bit down on top speed you can get a good slipstream and use DRS to make a pass. Looking at strategy here in the past it has typically been a one stop race so that limits the options and even in today’s heat the tyres lasted well so I can”.

Max Verstappen
“It was a good day on track. We knew that it would be a more difficult weekend for the team as this is definitely the most challenging track for us on the calendar, but I think it wasn’t too bad today and we can definitely improve for tomorrow. We found a good balance in between the sectors so it’s now up to us and the car. For the moment we are a little bit too far behind Mercedes, but if we get everything sorted for tomorrow, we can get closer. They definitely look very strong. Difficult to say what tomorrow brings, it will for sure be tougher than Spa and I think you can clearly see that, but we’ll do our best.”