• Hungarian GP - Qualifying

Ricciardo wants to take fight to vulnerable Rosberg

ESPN Staff
July 26, 2014 « Alonso targeting third place by end of first lap | Hamilton and Magnussen to start from pits »
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Daniel Ricciardo thinks he and team-mate Sebastian Vettel are perfectly placed to capitalise on Sunday if Nico Rosberg suffers a similar issue to the one which ended Lewis Hamilton's qualifying early in Hungary.

Vettel and Ricciardo qualified second and fourth for tomorrow's race after showing an upswing in performance at a high-downforce circuit more suited to the RB10. Hamilton's session ended in flames early on in Q1 and Ricciardo thinks the two Red Bulls will be ready to pounce on any further Mercedes trouble.

"In terms of forcing them in to problems I think that's just going to happen," Ricciardo said. "If it happens naturally it will. But it's important for us to be there as we were in Canada and as Seb is today; second and he's right there if something happens. So it's important for us to capitalise if we can.

"It was pretty surprising what happened with Lewis. I think it was on his out lap so very early in the session, whether that's a concern for Nico tomorrow I'm not sure. Obviously you always want to be as far up as you can and if something happens it happens."

Valtteri Bottas split the Red Bulls by going P3 but Ricciardo is confident Williams will pose less of a threat than at recent races if he can get by at the start.

"We should be better off round here. I believe we've got more downforce so it should be a bit easier to handle the tyres. Unfortunately one of them is just in front of me on the grid so it's really going to be crucial I think to get him off the start. Unfortunately their starts are pretty rapid and ours are generally not as good but I'll go in to tomorrow confident that we can jump him and I think from then on we should have a good race."

For only the third time this season Ricciardo was outqualified by Vettel, which he puts down to the loss of part of his rear wing in Q3.

"Q1 and Q2 was looking alright - I think we were pretty much matching each other - and then Q3 was tricky. Once the rain came down I just struggled a little bit to get the tyres back in to a good working range for that one timed lap.

"We lost a little bit of the rear wing as well, the boys just showed me a piece that fell off during Q3 as well which didn't help our efforts. But anyway, that was pretty much the story today. Better than yesterday but obviously was hoping for a front row after we saw Lewis make an early exit.

"It was the monkey seat as they call it. I think the monkey's dead, his tambourines got pretty messed up as well so he's long gone. Poor monkey!"

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