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Ricciardo aims to close Mercedes gap further in Spa

Daniel Ricciardo believes Red Bull should target closing the gap to Mercedes even more at the Belgian Grand Prix next weekend.

Racing resumes after the summer break at Spa-Francorchamps, with Mercedes having won the last seven races in a row since Max Verstappen's victory at the Spanish Grand Prix. Red Bull was competitive in Germany, with Ricciardo finishing within seven seconds of race winner Lewis Hamilton, and the Australian wants to keep closing that gap.

"I think our performances this year are much more representative of 2014 and 2014 Spa was very good, for me, particularly," Ricciardo said. "This year, I think we’ve surprised ourselves on some circuits.

"Coming in to [the German Grand Prix], after Friday we saw our long run pace and it looked good but before Friday we didn’t really expect to have two Red Bulls on the podium.

"Let’s see what happens in Spa. I think we will have a pretty good car around there. I think for now our target is keep being at least second best. Obviously we want to win but if we can keep staying ahead of Ferrari then that’s good for us for now.

"I think we were within ten seconds of the lead [at Hockenheim] and that’s obviously a nice start so hopefully Spa can be a bit closer again and keep chipping away."

Ricciardo won the Belgian Grand Prix in 2014 after Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg collided early in the race. While he has finished on the podium in each of the last two races, that victory remains Ricciardo's last in F1.

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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.