Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo has set his sights on beating Pierre Gasly to fourth place at Imola after a “fun” qualifying session saw him finish just 0.018s behind the Frenchman in fifth.
Ricciardo managed to pip Red Bull’s Alexander Albon on the third row but couldn’t get the better of Gasly, who was the leading midfield car at the end of the session.
With only 90 minutes of practice preceding qualifying, Ricciardo has no concerns despite being under-prepared, and is hoping to walk away from the race with a strong haul of points.
“I didn’t really get a long run in this morning, so I don’t think we know too much tomorrow,” Ricciardo said.
“But saying that, everyone is in the same boat – I’m not too concerned. Gasly is a target. If we can get him at the start, fourth is a serious chance for us.
“That’s what we’ll try and capitalise on tomorrow. As fun as it was today, I do think it’s going to be trickier in the race.
“It is narrow, hard to find an alternate line when following a car. [I] qualified well, that’s box number one ticked.”
Despite not being the fastest driver in the midfield pack, Ricciardo was satisfied with his result, labelling his final Q3 lap as his best of the year.
“I’m very happy with the lap and the result. Even that aside, pushing the cars around here, doing those lap times, is fun,” Ricciardo said.
“It’s a serious circuit, it really is. It’s that combination, it’s narrow, it’s tight, it’s fast. There’s chicanes, but chicanes you can attack the kerbs.
“Not sure what it is with race cars and race drivers, something about taking kerbs and really throwing the car around, it shows a bit of personality in a way.
“Felt like a fun, ragged, aggressive session which we could manhandle. Q3 was awesome, that lap was my best Q3 one of the year.”
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