Daniel Ricciardo had a busy build-up to qualifying this afternoon at Monza and with minutes to spare, just barely succeeded in completing a lap in Q1, finishing the session in P15, just behind team mate Daniil Kvyat.
An ICE failure in FP3 in the morning forced Red Bull to change Ricciardo's power unit before qualifying, a mechanical prowess accomplished in less than two hours.
"The new engine lasted only a handful of laps this morning," lamented Ricciardo.
"But the boys did the world's quickest engine change in 1 hour and 40 minutes. So to get out there and do one lap at the end was already a victory, I think everyone cheered when I drove out of the box. I was pretty happy with the lap itself considering the chaos of the situation."
With Red Bull's current inventory of new engines now extinguished, the team had no other choice but to put back yesterday's unit into Ricciardo's car.
On a track where Renault's power deficit has only been augmented, the Australian, as well as his team mate, shall be starting from the back of the field, which forebodes for a long race for the pair.
"When you are out of the points the race always feels longer because you have nothing to fight for. When you are at the front, it feels like it goes really quick. I don’t know where we will end up. Our race pace has been ok, but nothing rapid, so we will see what happens."
" The positive aspect is I like overtaking and at this track you can do it, so I'm looking forward to the challenges tomorrow. If we could get any sort of points tomorrow, that’d be good. Anywhere in the top ten would be a great weekend."
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