Daniel Ricciardo admits he and Esteban Ocon will need to "bully" Sergio Perez to have any chance of beating him in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Racing Point driver just pipped the two Renault drivers to fifth on the grid in qualifying and is expected to excel in a race where tyre management will be crucial.

And with the French manufacturer needing a big result to reinvigorate their hopes of third in the Constructors' Championship, the Australian knows he and Ocon must capitalise as Lance Stroll starts 13th and both McLarens also struggling a little more.

"Obviously Perez just got us, but he's there," Ricciardo said after qualifying.

"Obviously, with Esteban right there as well… Yeah, the perfect picture as we both get him into Turn 1 tomorrow and hold firm and get some points back that we missed a couple of weeks ago.

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"His [Perez] long runs are good, he's always been good at managing tyres.

"We really have to put pressure on him and in a way try and bully him at the start and really kind of force his strategy a little bit. If he gets off in clean air, we will be hard to beat."

As for the internal battle with Ocon, Ricciardo now leads his teammate 14-1 this season, but on Saturday, only finished 0.002s in front of the Frenchman.

"They're the ones that really hurt," he admitted. "I don't always sympathize with my opponents but I felt a little bad for Esteban.

"Obviously, the quali record is not really in his favour this year and when you get one like that, I'm sure he's thinking, what do I have to do?

"But in saying that - now it's the competitor coming out - he had two sets in Q3, I actually used both of mine in Q1.

"I struggled with the first set, so had to use it again which left with just one new set in Q3, so made it a little bit harder for myself."

Ocon though wasn't too downbeat about the result.

"Daniel has the edge on me this year, he has been fast in quali and he's done a tremendous job," he said.

"But he's blessed a bit in a way when it comes to being that close altogether. It's been a couple of times that it's always in his favour, but up to me to do the next two.

"Overall an awesome session, it's awesome for the team. We have two cars in the top ten and not the other rivals so that's the main thing."