Daniel Ricciardo has teased at the expense of his Formula 1 rivals that it won’t be long before he finishes seventh in the French Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver failed to move to the final round of qualifying at Circuit Paul Ricard, finishing Q2 in 11th place as teammate Lando Norris easily qualified for Q3 and finished fifth.
However, it’s not all bad news for the Australian, who thinks it won’t be long before race day finds him near the top 10.
Ricciardo will be starting ninth in Sunday’s race thanks to engine penalties imposed against Ferrari’s second place qualifier Carlos Sainz and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen who qualified in 10th.
Despite the fact that those places are a given, the Perth-born driver joked about the fact that he expects AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso to be easy targets.
“We got a couple of freebies with Sainz and Magnussen, so I’ll be ninth,”. Ricciardo added, “And then Yuki, he’s not good at starting, so I’ll be eighth,”.
“Alonso is either great or bad, so I’ll probably be seventh, and then we’ll see from there,” said Ricciardo.
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McLaren teammate outshines his under-fire veteran by securing P5
Daniel Ricciardo’s misery continued after being knocked out in the second qualifying phase at the French Grand Prix on Saturday.
The Australian missed out on Q3 by eight-hundredths of a second to Kevin Magnussen as he finished 11th
While his younger teammate Lando Norris put his car on the third row of the grid by just over two-tenths of a second; eventually qualifying fifth between the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
Ricciardo will start ninth after the grid penalties are imposed, but the McLaren driver finds little solace in the news after yet another day of bad luck.
The former Red Bull ace said, “Lando’s lap is encouraging because a top-five is a big day and a big result; but there are still some places where I scratch my head a bit trying to understand how to make it work,”.
“When I heard I was out in Q2, I was pissed, angry and frustrated and all that. But a couple of hours removed I’m more focused on tomorrow and putting that behind me.” Added Ricciardo
“We just need to make a good start and hopefully we can show some good race pace and tyre management.”
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As it stands, the eight-time race winner is currently on to score points for the fourth time this year; from ninth on the grid. But the finishing position is up in the air following an extremely tight midfield battle involving McLaren, Alpine, and Mercedes.
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