Saturday: Red Bull failed to trouble Mercedes

Daniel Ricciardo (#3) – 2nd and 3rd

We can sense that ambition is still a priority at Red Bull, as the Australian couldn’t help but regret not being closer to the Mercedes cars despite having just set the third-fastest time in the qualifying session: « I think I could have been closer to the front today, and I don’t like when that’s the case. I made a mistake on my last run in Q3: we were ahead, and I thought everything was going well, but I made an error and lost the time I had gained. Nonetheless, there’s no room for excuses here. So I’ll just learn for next time. »

Now, the objective is very clear for tomorrow’s race: at least the podium, or even victory if everything goes perfectly. Daniel Ricciardo was very clear about his ambitions: I would be disappointed not to finish on the podium tomorrow. I think we have the pace to keep up with Mercedes. Hopefully, we can disrupt at least one of them. Then maybe with a good strategy, we can give ourselves a real chance to win.

Sebastian Vettel (No. 1) – 4th and 4th

The quadruple world champion’s qualifying session was once again disrupted by technical problems: « I had some issues during qualifying today. During Q1, we lost the ERS, namely the electric power discharge of the car, and we never recovered it. In the end, we tried a different mode that worked but not as well as it should have. It’s the first time we had this problem this weekend but these kinds of things happen. We tried a lot of different modes but, at some point, you just have to keep your head down and make do with it. »

In the end, he managed to achieve the fourth-fastest time as he was also affected by the yellow flag caused by Nico Rosberg: « My time was good, but we couldn’t improve on the second fast lap in Q3 because there was a yellow flag. I thought we could make life difficult for Mercedes today, but we struggled with a few elements and the gap was too big. Nevertheless, it’s always good to be on the second row for tomorrow. »