Ricciardo surprised by Red Bull's qualifying pace

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Daniel Ricciardo admits he did not expect to qualify in the top three for the Grand Prix of Europe after the pace shown on Friday.

Red Bull struggled on Friday compared to its main rivals, with the Mercedes-powered cars dominating the top five in FP2. In qualifying a mistake from Lewis Hamilton saw the defending champion crash out without posting a time in Q3, and Ricciardo then managed to beat the two Ferraris on his final lap to set the third quickest time.

With Sergio Perez second fastest but facing a grid penalty for a gearbox change, Ricciardo will start from second and praised Red Bull for the progress it made with its car overnight.

“We definitely improved it," Ricciardo said. "Today we took a step in the right direction. Already this morning we were looking like we were more in the competition. Yesterday we struggled and it didn’t help losing track time with the crash in P1.

"Qualifying was good, we were able to chip away at it. Q3 wasn't very clean, on the first lap I made a few mistakes and didn’t put it together. Obviously the red flag made the second run just go out and try and set a time. Obviously we did that, I put in a time that was good enough to be here so I think we received well.

"Did I think we would be here yesterday? No. Did I think we were going to be on the front row? Not really. But thanks to Perez and a few circumstances I think we put ourselves in a good position."

And Ricciardo says the result shows Red Bull is still making progress with the Renault power unit after being able to beat Ferrari in qualifying.

"It looks like everyone is a lot closer this weekend. The Mercedes-powered cars seem quite quick from yesterday, the Force India and Williams looked very competitive. So we had to take a little bit of downforce off to try and get closer but as Canada we are seeing improvements, so we’re getting there."

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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.