Beating Raikkonen “a bit of a surprise” – Ricciardo

2017 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Daniel Ricciardo admitted Red Bull had hoped but not expected to beat one of the Ferraris in qualifying.

Ricciardo will start the Bahrain Grand Prix from fourth position after narrowly out-qualifying Kimi Raikkonen by 0.022 seconds.

2017 Bahrain GP qualifying in pictures
“It’s a bit of a surprise,” said Ricciardo, who had played down the team’s performance in practice yesterday when they lapped within a tenth of a second of Mercedes and Ferrari.

“We kind of thought if we put everything together there might be a chance of a second row,” said Ricciardo. “And yeah, we got it. I don’t know what Kimi’s lap was like but to jump a Ferrari is nice. It’s a good little bit of progress in one week.”

He predicted Red Bull will only be able to rival Mercedes and Ferrari in the race if they start poorly or run into trouble with their tyres.

“I think the others have still got a pretty big margin,” said Ricciardo.

“If they run into some tyre deg maybe we can have a bit of a go. Obviously at the start we’ll see but once the race settles they’ll still have a bit more pace.”

“I think it’s still up in the air with a one or a two-stop [strategy] race so maybe that will play into our hands.”

Ricciardo’s team mate Max Verstappen said he was held up by Felipe Massa’s Williams on his way to the sixth-fastest time. Nonetheless Red Bull have achieved their strongest qualifying performance of the season so far in Bahrain.

2017 Bahrain Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    14 comments on “Beating Raikkonen “a bit of a surprise” – Ricciardo”

    1. Kimi is washed up, done. He’ll never win another race or title.

      1. Kinda think Ric could be a Ferrari employee next year.

    2. Don’t worry about Kimi…Max will come get you!

    3. angelic (@angelicdarkness)
      15th April 2017, 19:12

      Anyone can beat kimi nowadays. Bwoah!

    4. If Ferrari is serious about a title challenge, they desparately needs a driver that can get in the fight and disturb the opposition properly. Kimi’s not up to the job anymore.

    5. I believe Kimi is the reason Vettel has a car worth driving. Every team he he has driven for the car has only got better. He may not win races or titles again but the development he does will…..

      1. I prefer to believe that Vettel got a car this year cuz Ferrari spent a massive amount of money on it. Or it took 4 seasons for Kimi to put his knowledge on the table and help the team?

        Kimi was once great. He delivered every race. Now he is just regular or even below that. Be somewhat fast like he does, well, there’s semi-retired Massa only a little slower with a way less competitive car.

        II don’t doubt Massa could’ve gone faster than Kimi in that Ferrari.

      2. I agree – the only reason Ferrari has kept Kimi so long is because of his efforts in development of the car.

        1. stop… stop Kimi fans … i’m dying of laughter here…

        2. @kimiraikkonen1207
          He’s also the only Ferrari world champion racing in F1 at the moment, that means a lot to the team, and some of their fans. If he was to leave the team, he’d probably retire, and not having a single Ferrari champion in F1 would be a big loss for the team, psychologicaly and in marketing terms. If Sebastian wins the title this season I think it would possibly result in the team looking to replace Kimi quite soon.

    6. Ferrari, do yourselves a favour and pay Jenson Button whatever amount of money he wants and get him in that car next year!

      1. @nick101 To get the same result. I wonder if Ricciardo is jealous of his old nemesis, Bottas.

    7. Unfortunately for all Kimi fans, myself included, his talents lie in the marketing department more so than on track. He used to be great about a decade ago, and showed a glimpse of that greatness when driving for Lotus, but he’s been constantly disappointing for the past 3 seasons, and now going on 4th. Ferrari do seem to like him but unless he does an unlikely 180, I have no doubt this is his last season in F1. About time too.

    8. MG421982 (@)
      16th April 2017, 8:39

      I think there’s no surprise: after 2 races he’s 5th in the WDC, without any problems so far to make him lose places/points. On contrary, if BOT wouldn’t have made that mistake in China, RAI would have finished the race even lower, so less points for him, more for BOT. So, the standings situation would have been even worse for RAI than it is now. I think it’s really the time to retire at the end of this season, his glory days are looooong gone.

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