- Italian GP - Qualifying
Ricciardo plans to take risks at Monza
Daniel Ricciardo admits he will have to take risks from ninth on the grid at the Italian Grand Prix with pit strategy likely to have a limited effect on the race result.
After Friday's practice sessions Ricciardo was optimistic of sneaking into the top five in qualifying but ended up three tenths off team-mate Sebastian Vettel in eighth. Pirelli's conservative tyre choice [bringing medium and hard compounds] means a one-stop could be the optimum strategy and Ricciardo knows this means he cannot afford to hold back on Sunday.
"Realistically we knew we would struggle more here [than Spa]," Ricciardo said. "Once everyone bolted on less downforce we knew it would be trickier. We still would have loved better than eighth or ninth, we were aiming for a top five. We knew that would be a bit of a stretch but sixth was still a bit of a target but it was a bit off that.
"Obviously we will try and make up for it tomorrow but with a one stop race it doesn't leave us too much opportunity with strategy, so it's probably a just a case of having a good start, maybe taking a few risks and hoping comes off - a good thing, not something comes off the car!"
Ricciardo believes Red Bull may have less of a pace disadvantage during the race but still thinks it's straight-line speed will hurt its chances of a strong result.
"It doesn't help us here, we seem to lose quite a bit there. But the long run did look a lot more competitive. Maybe our wing is working better, or the others are working better with the DRS and getting more gain where we don't get as much. So with high-fuel and no DRS maybe that will give us more competitiveness but I don't know.
"We struggled a little bit with tyre warm-up in the past. I don't think that was a big issue today but maybe others are able to extract more on one timed lap in some situations."
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