Daniel Ricciardo is confident Red Bull will be close to Mercedes on race pace in today's German Grand Prix after qualifying in third place.
During Friday's long runs, Red Bull was close to Mercedes on high fuel while there was a bigger gap in qualifying trim. Saturday saw Ricciardo get within 0.4s of pole position as the deficit was reduced, and the Australian is quietly confident Red Bull will be able to put some pressure on Mercedes at Hockenheim.
"I think on low fuel [on Friday] Mercedes had a pretty good buffer over everyone and the long race pace we looked to be closer than that," Ricciardo said. "That was giving us good optimism going into Sunday. Obviously [in qualifying] it got a bit closer than we were, so let’s see.
"Hopefully it translates into something, even to put a little bit of pressure of them at some point in the race would be nice but let’s see, you never know what could happen. The race tracks change day-to-day with the temperature and whatever but yeah Red Bull looking pretty good, locking out the second row and hopefully we can do something.”
Asked about Red Bull's tyre strategy for the race, Ricciardo is hoping to try something different to Mercedes.
“Yeah I think from what I understand we’ve got different tyres available for the race so there could be some different strategies amongst the first few cars. Hopefully if it works out, if it does the fans might have a race on their hands.”
Ricciardo has one set of new softs, one set of new supersofts and three sets of used supersofts for the race - as well as a set of used mediums - while the Mercedes drivers have an extra set of used softs but one less set of used supersofts each.
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