Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull had one of its best Fridays of the season as he was able to split the Mercedes cars in FP2 for the United States Grand Prix.
While the two Mercedes cars were nearly two seconds clear of the field in the first practice session, Ricciardo was able to beat Lewis Hamilton on Friday afternoon as he ended up less than 0.2s slower than Nico Rosberg. With the long run pace also looking good compared to Mercedes, Ricciardo says it has been an encouraging start for Red Bull.
"It is one of our best Fridays for sure," Ricciardo said. "On our long run pace we looked like we were able match them if not be quicker. But I’ve said it before – it is Friday, but it is nice to have a good Friday.
"It’s nice to start the weekend on the right foot. I don’t think we will have hours and hours of work ahead of ourselves tonight. Just a bit of fine tuning. We don’t have to search for too much at the moment."
However, Ricciardo did add the caveat that he expects Mercedes to have more in hand, saying it will be crucial whether Red Bull can match its overnight improvement or not.
"It was a good day. The low fuel pace was okay. It looks good on the time sheets but I think we can still find a bit more. I am sure Mercedes as well will have a bit more. But looking at where Ferrari were, it was a solid day.
"More so with our long run pace – we are happy with that. Felt like we got some good, consistent laps out of that and were able to really chip away the whole day. So we made progress from P1, and pretty happy with where we ended up. Hopefully not too much on tonight, a little bit of fine tuning."
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