Daniel Ricciardo is aiming to further improve his Red Bull car in order to maintain the dominance he showed during Friday Practice for the remainder of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.
The Australian ended the first day of action at Marina Bay with an advantage of over half a second from his teammate Max Verstappen and seven-tenths clear of the first non-Red Bull of Lewis Hamilton in third.
His 1:40.852s in the evening also smashed the lap record which he had set earlier in the day, as the increased grip of the 2017 cars showed on the twisty street circuit.
At the end of the day’s action, however, the Baku race winner was still demanding more both on a single lap and on the long run, where the RB13 had also looked superior.
“We made some progress from this morning even if we were quickest this morning,” Ricciardo commented. “I was still wanting more from the car and we found another step and I think we can find yet another half a step.
“The long run, surprisingly we did quite a few laps,” he added, “I think we can still improve it, but still with the package we have it is pretty good.”
The 28-year-old is known to have strong Friday’s particularly at circuits where Red Bull are expected to perform, the most recent example was back in Hungary when the man in Perth led both practices before slipping back behind Ferrari and Mercedes over the weekend.
That experience is probably driving Ricciardo as he is aware the top two teams this season are likely to battle back on Saturday.
“It was a good day. I want to continue like that for tomorrow and Sunday, so I believe we can,” he said.
“A dominant weekend is what I am after. It has been a good start. I know the challenge tomorrow. We will potentially be stronger than Ferrari and Mercedes, but I am confident that we can stay there.”
Also looking to respond to Ricciardo’s pace will be Verstappen. The Dutchman looked a little ragged at times, including a touch against the wall at Turn 10, but he would claim his best time wasn’t representative of the pace he believes he can produce come qualifying.
“We all know that Daniel is very, very quick here,” he said of the gap to his teammate. “My fast lap I had to abort because someone has spun and there were yellow flags and I couldn’t use the DRS. So it makes no sense to continue.
“So there’s still some lap time to come, also fine-tuning a bit the engine because we weren’t on top speeds today compared with the other cars that wasn’t great. We’ll see what happens.”
