Ricciardo had hoped for more: "I had to adjust my expectations right away"

Daniel Ricciardo had hoped for an enormously strong weekend in Monza after the good performance at Spa. However, after qualifying it turned out to be different. A seventh place for the Australian means he has to catch up to get the same result. Esteban Ocon has to catch up even more places, as the Frenchman does not even start in the top ten.

"At the beginning of the qualification, I had to adjust my expectations right away. It felt like we had lost a tenth somewhere, while the rest of the field had found a tenth", Ricciardo explained to Motorsport-Total.com. In Q2 he made a mistake, which made it even more exciting if the driver could go to Q3.

Slipstream overrated?

"It was already very exciting in Q2 and when I made that mistake I actually thought it was ready for me". In the third qualifying session the driver tried it without the slipstream of a predecessor and Ricciardo was surprised what the difference was. "I really expected to lose more time without a slipstream, but I lost very little".

"Maybe slipstream is a bit overrated", Ricciardo thought out loud. The final lap of Ricciardo was enough for ninth place for the race. "For the problems we had, the lap was fine. I expect the race to be a one-stop race. I think we can also push pretty hard on the tyre. We have to pay attention to the tyres, but they won't wear very hard", Ricciardo said.