Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were third and fourth in FP2 in Sochi. Both Red Bull drivers were pleased with their cars. They expect an interesting race because of their grid positions. Verstappen and Ricciardo will be at the back as they had power units replacements.
Max Verstappen
“It was a good Friday for us. It’s better than expected to be third in FP2. Straight away the car was working well, the long runs were good and we seem to be in good shape. Overall, the performance of the car is pleasing, we just need to understand the tyres better and work out the plan for the race. The information we received today was very good and we have the evening ahead to analyse everything. It was good to be in the mix with Ferrari and so far we can’t really complain.”
“I don’t know what the strategy for qualifying tomorrow will be, but we probably won’t do the full session. I also expect Ferrari to find something overnight, so it’s going to be close tomorrow. Taking the penalties here is not so bad because it’s not our strongest track, so it’s best to get it out of the way. Starting from the back of the grid should be fun. I mean, moving forward and passing people is never easy, but we’ll see how far we can get.”
Daniel Ricciardo
“The car felt good today and I really enjoyed driving. The circuit was actually good fun and we had pretty good pace. Because you don’t have any banking to give you extra grip on the corners, coming here with the Hypersoft gives you the grip you need, which made it more enjoyable. We got some traffic on the long runs this afternoon which gave us some feeling of how it will be in the race. It’s not the easiest track to overtake on, but we eventually got it done, so I think the race should be pretty entertaining.”
“I’m happy to see there is some tyre degradation, if it’s an easy one-stop race it could be a bit predictable, so I’m hoping it could be a two-stop to make it more exciting. There isn’t much use in us doing the full qualifying tomorrow due to the penalties, but we will see how we go after FP3 and decide what to do then. We did plenty of running this afternoon and I know we have some good data from that. It will be important to do another long run in FP3 and prepare fully for the race. Russia has never been our strongest circuit but today there are some good signs.”
SPY: Probably not wishing Collingwood well this weekend then… #RBspy ?️♂️ #RussianGP ?? pic.twitter.com/PXKDtKHFbA
— Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 28, 2018
