Daniel Ricciardo is eyeing his first win of the 2016 season after dominating the second qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix, whilst insisting Red Bull can stay ahead of Mercedes on Saturday and Sunday.
The Red Bull driver topped FP2 by more than six-tenths to Lewis Hamilton. Whilst Ricciardo is certain that Mercedes will turn things up on Saturday, he believed Red Bull can do the same and take pole and the win.
"The engine has helped a little bit but obviously we have a good car around here as well, I think it’s down to a little bit of both.," he said after the session.
"Let’s see how we go in qualifying on Saturday. We are in a good position," he said. "If you’re going to pick the races on the calendar to win then Monaco is up there, it’s so prestigious, and you can really show personality around this track.
"Come qualifying and race day Mercedes will turn it up but hopefully I can stay in front. I’ll be surprised if we can keep the gap we have today in qualifying but we will see how we go.
"If the weather stays the same for the race and qualifying we won’t change too many things. The goal here is pole and win."
Max Verstappen, who is eyeing his second career victory this weekend, admitted that he still needed to build up confidence in the car, despite winning on his debut with the RB12.
"It looks like we are not too bad, so I think it’s a good start to the weekend," he said.
"You have to build up over the weekend so that’s what we did today and we’ll try to improve everything for Saturday. I think the feeling was there, we just built it up lap by lap and we didn’t have a crash so that’s the most important thing.
"The conditions were OK, we just need to work on the car balance and getting a bit more confidence in the car and from there on we’ll see what happens. We are not too far off, we’ll try to improve our car but I’m sure others will do that as well so we’ll see."
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