Ricciardo predicts tighter battle with Mercedes, Ferrari

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Daniel Ricciardo believes the rest of the season will see a tighter battle between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.

Fresh from his victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix - which came after Lewis Hamilton retired from the lead - Ricciardo was only 12th fastest in FP2 after aborting his soft tyre lap. With third-placed Kimi Raikkonen just 0.3s slower than Nico Rosberg, the Australian believes Red Bull has a fight on its hands to beat Ferrari but can be close to the front on Saturday.

AS IT HAPPENED: Japanese Grand Prix - FP2

"I expect the rest of the season to be tighter," Ricciardo said. "Here, if we get the car hooked up in qualifying we can be strong and can be close to Mercedes and hopefully ahead of Ferrari. But Kimi’s time was solid today. If I was able to complete that lap I probably wouldn’t not have been quicker than him anyway. So that was solid.

"Tomorrow we can squeeze a bit more out of it, but we definitely have a challenge. The top three teams will be going hammer and tong the rest of the year."

Ricciardo says he still got the knowledge out of his low fuel lap even though he couldn't complete it, but was more encouraged by Red Bull's long run pace.

"We made some improvements from this morning, so the lap that we had to abort was probably going to be a…was definitely in the 32s, so probably just behind Kimi’s time. So Ferrari looked pretty strong but we are sort of close enough for today, so that was okay.

"Then the long run seemed pretty solid at the end there. We finished on the hard tire and that seemed pretty decent, so it is good to be back on this circuit. It’s always a pleasure around here."

With wet weather forecast for Saturday, Ricciardo says he is excited by the prospect of a three-way fight in qualifying.

"Ferrari look good, Kimi's lap was strong today. I see that and actually I get excited because it's another target and another challenge to compete against tomorrow. I think Mercedes still have a bit of an advantage, particularly on one lap, but with Ferrari it looks like it's going to be close. It should be good.

"If it's dry and we set the car up well tonight I think we can just manage to be ahead but if it's wet it's anyone's qualifying."

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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.