Daniel Ricciardo has jibed at the expense of his Formula 1 rivals that it won’t be long before he’s seventh in the French Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver failed to make it into the final leg of qualifying at Circuit Paul Ricard, finishing Q2 in 11th while teammate Lando Norris cruised through to Q3 to end up fifth.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Australian, who believes it won’t be long before he’s on the fringe of the top 10 come race day.
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Ricciardo will start ninth thanks to engine penalties going the way of second place qualifier Carlos Sainz of Ferrari and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen in 10th.
Although those places are a given, the Perth-born driver joked that he expects AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso to be easy pickings.
“We got a couple of freebies with Sainz and Magnussen, so I’ll be ninth,” said Ricciardo.
“And then Yuki, he’s not good at starting, so I’ll be eighth,” he joked.
“Alonso is either great or bad, so I’ll probably be seventh, and then we’ll see from there.”
McLaren debuted a new side pod and floor design at the Le Castellet circuit, which was hoped to bring better performance.
Ricciardo ran with the set-up in Practice 1 though Norris has had it since Practice 2.
The Brit continued his qualifying streak over his teammate, making it 10-2 after going fifth fastest in Q3 to split the two Mercedes entries Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
Ricciardo said McLaren has made gains but is still lacking in parts of the track.
“Only some corners good, some corners not so good,” he said.
“So, I think in general there’s improvements. Some corners I still struggle, just trying to push and get those few more tenths out of it.
“I still don’t feel I get the reward, or I get the car kind of coming back to me the way I feel.
“There were some places I think, like turn one, two, you can feel the car’s kind of a bit better loaded and stuff, so there’s certainly some positives, but some corners where I still scratch my head, so still a bit to find.
“It’s positive. We’ll have a look back through the lap and see why I didn’t get what I wanted in some of these places, but I think generally it’s a step forward.”
The Formula 1 French Grand Prix takes place on Sunday at 11pm (AEST).
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start on pole position alongside Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.
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