Ricciardo sees ‘close’ fight behind Mercedes, Ferrari

Daniel Ricciardo expect Mercedes and Ferrari to be the top two teams in the pecking order comes the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but sees Red Bull in the ‘close’ fight behind them.

After six days of pre-season testing at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the double world champions have shown impressive reliability and strong pace while the Scuderia has already topped the timesheets on three occasions.

“The two sure things for now are Mercedes and Ferrari, they are the top two,” Ricciardo replied when asked about how the current hierarchy is shaping up.

“That looks close. Williams and us are more or less there, close to them, and then the rest, who knows, Toro Rosso and all the other teams, it could be pretty close behind Mercedes and Ferrari.”

Williams’ Valtteri Bottas actually set the pace on Wednesday, with Ricciardo racking up 135 laps to finish sixth fastest. Talking about his programme, the Red Bull driver added:

“We did a race sim, that definitely was on the to-do list, and I am glad we got through that. So that’s a positive.

“Fitness is good. The car feels decent. The last half hour it got gusty and the wind picked up and the sun gets a bit lower, so that made it a bit more challenging but otherwise a pretty good day”.

Ricciardo will hand over the RB12 to his team-mate Daniil Kvyat on Thursday before returning to wrap up this year’s pre-season testing the following day.

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