Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo targets Ferrari in Monaco

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Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull is capable of challenging Ferrari in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix after an encouraging start.

Mercedes' advantage in FP1 was smaller in Monaco than previous races, with Ricciardo ending the session in third place, a little over 0.3s slower than pace-setter Lewis Hamilton. With rain interrupting the second session, the full pecking order is unclear but Ricciardo believes Red Bull can challenge Ferrari if it gets its qualifying performance right.

"I think it was decent," Ricciardo said. "We started off, I think we are on the right foot. There is nothing massively with the car that feels out of shape. So, I think we are more or less there where we need to be.

"Besides Mercedes it is pretty closer. I think Ferrari obviously still have the edge but with a perfect qualifying, we can maybe try to split them.

"Don't get me wrong, to get in front of Ferrari will still be quite an effort but anything can happen around here, it is not impossible. We should be ahead of the Williams at least. Toro Rosso look quick again, but we should be alright."

However, Ricciardo admits it could be difficult to perfect the strategy in qualifying based on Thursday's running.

"Tyre warm up with the cold today was pretty poor, so hopefully a bit more sun comes up on Saturday to help us otherwise qualifying might be a few laps to get it going.

"The soft was taking a while. Even this morning a lot of the guys, even us after 10 laps the times were still coming down. Maybe in qualifying we put 50kg and drive around the whole session it might help us."

Click here for Thursday's gallery from the Monaco Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.