Ricciardo: Red Bull is closing on Mercedes

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Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull is closing in on Mercedes at almost every race after challenging for pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen was just 0.149s slower than Nico Rosberg in qualifying, with Ricciardo nearly half a second adrift in fifth place. The performance comes at a circuit where Ricciardo won in 2014 but still places an emphasis on power unit performance, and the Australian believes high temperatures and Red Bull's improvements led to the close fight.

"I’m not sure on the explanation, I think the last few races we’ve seen a trend where we are getting more and more competitive," Ricciardo said.

""The only thing I can think of is Singapore last year with the really hot track conditions. It was Mercedes’ weakest race of the year, sure they’ve been quick at other hot places, but maybe with the heat they’re not getting the most out of their tyres this weekend, that’s all I can think of.

"Obviously we are making improvements which is why we are closer, so that’s positive."

"The downforce we started with [on Friday] we didn’t touch, so I think we were pretty happy with the compromise we made, I think the hot track conditions made it tricky to get a good set up this weekend.

"I think we were always confident that the downforce we were running was the good one, just to get a car that you’re happy with, especially the supersoft with such a hot track condition here didn’t feel that great with the car sliding quite a lot and the tyres overheating quite quickly.

"So I think probably not everyone was happy with the balance they had but that’s more the nature of the tyres and the heat as opposed to the downforce we’re running. With the downforce I think we had a good compromise, we seem pretty quick in the straight, quick enough, and obviously our second sector is competitive."

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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.