Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo admits 'awesome' P2 was unexpected

Daniel Ricciardo admits he is surprised to qualify in second place for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver pulled out an impressive final lap in Q3 to beat the two Ferrari drivers to the front row, ending up half a second slower than Nico Rosberg. It is the first time Ricciardo has qualified on the front row since last year's Singapore Grand Prix and he admits the result is an unexpected one.

Asked where his lap came from, Ricciardo replied: "Not sure!

"To be honest qualifying I didn’t think we started in the best position. In Q1 obviously it was a disrupted session but also the balance it didn’t seem like we were really going to be in a fight with the front few rows today. In Q3 we just found a bit more speed.

"The supersoft is a tricky tyre to manage, to get the one lap out of it is not exactly easy. It gets chewed up quite a bit as the lap goes on, so I think just understanding that as the session goes on. Obviously between me understanding a bit more what to do on track and the engineer making a few adjustments with pressures and the front wing, I think we got a good package at the end.

"Second is pretty awesome, I didn’t expect this.”

REPORT: Rosberg beats Ricciardo to pole as Hamilton falls in Q1

AS IT HAPPENED: Chinese Grand Prix - Qualifying

Romain Grosjean column: A start beyond my craziest dream

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.