Ricciardo expected Ferrari to be ‘a bit quicker’

Daniel Ricciardo admits to being slightly surprised by Red Bull’s gap to Ferrari in Friday practice at the Malaysian Grand Prix, as he expected the Scuderia to “be a bit quicker”.

The Australian was four tenths behind the Ferrari duo in FP2, with team-mate Max Verstappen trailing the lead SF16-h by the same margin in the afternoon.

When assessing his team’s performance compared to its rivals, Ricciardo believes Red Bull can challenge to be the second-fastest team at Sepang.

“Mercedes we don’t have to explain, we know that they will be quick.” he said. “I thought Ferrari would be a bit quicker here. With all going well we can get closer to that, we can get within a couple of tenths. So we will see on Saturday.”

Ricciardo concedes he was “a bit off the pace where I want to be” in FP2, as Verstappen seemed to have the upper hand in the race simulation. The 27-year-old remains confident he can extract more speed as the weekend unfolds, though he believes Ferrari has the edge in terms of one-lap pace.

“I think we can get closer, I think they’ll still have their nose in front come qualifying, but in the race as we know anything can happen. I don’t know what the weather forecast is, but if there’s a bit of rain we probably wouldn’t turn that down for now. We definitely want to find a bit more in the dry conditions.”

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