- Spanish GP - FP2
Mercedes further ahead than expected - Ricciardo
Daniel Ricciardo admits he is disheartened by the gap Mercedes still has over the rest of the field despite Red Bull making clear gains during Friday practice.
Ricciardo was third in both sessions as Red Bull appeared to show it has made enough of a step forward to be the best of the rest in Spain. Though pleased with Red Bull's gains Ricciardo admits it is deflating to see Mercedes also make a big step forward as well.
"[Today was] not bad, but still the gap to Mercedes is bigger than we hoped. We've got to keep working at it. The last couple of races we've probably been third best, so it's nice that we haven't gone backwards, but we want to close the gap to Mercedes.
"They are still a little bit far in front but hopefully tonight we can find a bit more and try and give them some pressure tomorrow. [The gap] is bigger than hoped. But let's see in equal conditions in qualifying. They are still unreachable at the moment."
"We're doing well. Unfortunately Mercedes don't seem to slowing down either, they are little bit far away, but we are trying to pull them back. We seem to be in a solid second place though today."
Ricciardo was leading the line for Red Bull on Friday after an electrical issue limited Sebastian Vettel to just four laps. Ricciardo feels Vettel's predicament will only make it more difficult for Red Bull to reel in the gap to Mercedes this weekend.
"It doesn't make it any easier for us. With two cars you get twice the amount of data, twice the amount of feedback. It doesn't make it easy, especially for Seb as it puts him on the back foot. Even as a team we struggled to make that big step forward. My afternoon run went pretty good, in the short and the long runs we learnt quite a lot.
"Fortunately one of us was running well and we'll try to get as much information from that as possible. It's not only unfortunate for Seb but as a team we only learn half as much as we could have done. Everyone is only looking at what I've done so there's nothing to compare it to, it's disappointing."
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