Daniel Ricciardo has admitted a small mistake during second practice led to him going off and into the tyre barrier opposite the pits.
The Australian had recently gone quickest, but as he prepared for a second run, he lost control under acceleration and ran across the gravel before hitting the barrier at a relatively low speed.
“I made a mistake in FP2,” Ricciardo admitted. “I did a quick lap and then I was trying to get a good exit to start the next one.
“We were trying to cool the tyres and there was a yellow flag so I was trying to go slow enough to miss it at the start of the lap, but I think the tyres cooled too much and I was too hard on the throttle for the situation and lost the car.”
He is however hopeful that data collected by team-mate Sebastian Vettel will be sufficient for him heading into third practice and qualifying.
“It’s not ideal as we missed running this afternoon, but Sebastian did a full session so we will be able to see his data,” he added.
“The Mercs were really quick today, we think we’re there but then they pull a gap. I think we should be able to be third on the grid.”
