Red Bull believe a strong result in Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix is possible even if claiming pole in qualifying is a “bit of a stretch”.
Daniel Ricciardo ended Friday as the faster of the two drivers on the timesheet but in reality, it is teammate Max Verstappen who is the bigger threat to Ferrari and Mercedes after topping Practice 1 before suffering some problems in the afternoon.
The Australian was three-tenths down on the leading Mercedes in the second session but with all that time loss coming on the straights he knows to find that performance will be tough.
“Pole is probably a bit of a stretch in these conditions. I think this afternoon we had a decent car and we are three tenths off so it’s a bit much,” said the ‘Honey Badger’.
“It’s likely that the others will turn [it] up tomorrow, but the race pace seemed solid. All three tyres don’t seem that bad to start the race on so we will try to do something different on Sunday.”
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It was an oil leak from a crack which team boss Christian Horner suggested originated in Mexico that cost Verstappen the first half of Practice 2 and then his best lap on the Supersoft tyre was disrupted by Lance Stroll in the final sector.
“It’s just a shame in second practice that I missed the beginning – then you are a bit out of sync and you have to go a little bit through your programme and I had traffic on my Supersoft run, which is not ideal,” Max admitted.
“But anyway I don’t think we are going to fight for pole position. As soon as they open their engines in Q3 we are struggling.
“The car is in a good window and in the long runs I’m quite happy. There are a few things to improve but I am quite confident that we can fix that.”