Ricciardo Fancies his Chances Ahead of his 100th Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo has been impressed with the effort and pace that the Red Bull team have shown this weekend in Hockenheim and believes that Mercedes don’t have this race won already.

The Aussie is hoping to celebrate his 100th Grand Prix in Formula One with a strong result, and after trumping his young team-mate in qualifying, Ricciardo has the Silver Arrows duo in his cross-hairs.

100 up! 🏁👏 The #GermanGP will mark @danielricciardo's 100th Grand Prix in #F1 and 50th with the Team! pic.twitter.com/H046LF7SQW

— Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) July 28, 2016

He said,

“In Q3 I knew I had to find some more time and I put a really good lap together in the first run. Then I knew there wasn’t much more for the second run so I probably tried a little bit too hard and made a few mistakes, but in the end it was a nice qualifying.

Third is a good place to start. In the last three races now both Red Bulls have been in front of Ferrari and it seems like we’re getting a little bit closer to Mercedes.”

Tomorrow I think we’ll have a good chance. The long runs yesterday looked a bit better than they did in Budapest so let’s see. I’ll start the race on slightly older tyres because I had to do two laps in Q2, which means they are not as fresh for the start but it’ll be fine. I’ll go hard and hopefully get in front and at least lead some of the race.”

– Daniel Ricciardo

New blog is up. Hitting a century this weekend 😳 Daniel Ricciardo 100 F1 races: His greatest moments https://t.co/FWkRcKEGKl

— Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) July 28, 2016

His two hot-laps in Q2 will see him start the race on tyres that are 5 laps old, which almost guarantees the Aussie will have a 3-stop race. At least this means that Ricciardo will be able to push for the entire race as he won’t be managing tyre-wear to prolong a stint like most of the field.

Ricciardo is yet to win in 2016 and the smiling assassin seems pretty sure that he’s in with a shot here. The Red Bull truly does look to be getting seriously close to the pacesetters Mercedes.