Ricciardo: Having Mercedes power might be "scary"
Daniel Ricciardo has joked that it would be "scary" to have the amount of engine power the Mercedes Formula 1 team has with its qualifying engine modes
The Renault-powered Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were 0.2-0.3 seconds off the pace set by Lewis Hamilton in the second segment of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, but in Q3 they were 0.9-1.0s off the pace – a deficit that the team has frequently put down to Mercedes having special engine modes for the final part of qualifying in the V6 turbo hybrid era.
"Q2 we all looked pretty close, even to the leaders, but then in Q3 they all turned it up," Ricciardo told reporters on Saturday.
"They've got something special in Q3. We'd love to have the Mercedes power, what they had in Q3, that might be scary, actually!
"Going down the straights, we might brake really early because the speed is so high. It would be nice to have more, but I guess we're used to this position.
"We're still trying to do what we can with the chassis, we've brought quite a lot to the car this week and I think it is working but it's still hard to quantify when we're down [on power] in Q3 like that.
"Mercedes are strong, I'm not convinced they can hold that in the race – I'm sure the power they have to turn down a bit and on tyres they don't seem as comfortable as last year.
"I don't think they'll have it easy against Ferrari, and I feel like we will be closer than we were on one lap."
Verstappen, who narrowly outqualified Ricciardo to take fifth on the grid, said there was no point dwelling on the engine deficit.
"In Q2 everything was very close, but in Q3 we know they can turn up their engines, and then it was quite a big gap," he said.
"You can't change the situation. You would like to have it, but if it's not there, it's not there. You can be disappointed, you can get angry, but that will not solve anything.
"It's better to be positive and make the best of the situation you're in. Every track is different, but here you can clearly see from Q2 to Q3 what the difference became.
"This is not our track, so with the long straights of course the gap will be bigger than in Monaco, for example."
Additional reporting by Lawrence Barretto
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