Ricciardo hoping for two-stop race in Russia

Daniel Ricciardo will start towards the back of the field for the Russian Grand Prix on Sunday, and he hopes it will be a two-stop race.

The Australian is one of five drivers to take engine penalties and start from the back of the grid on Sunday afternoon.

Ricciardo, along with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, has gone back to the Renault ‘B-spec’ power unit, in the hope of being more reliable.

The Australian was delighted to see that there was some tyre fall-off in practice on Friday, and is hoping for more than one pit stop come Sunday.

“I am happy to see there’s some tyre deg today. If it’s just an easy one-stop then it’s a bit predictable, so I am hoping [it will] maybe be a two-stop, as I think that’ll make it more exciting,” Ricciardo said.

Meanwhile, the pair were P3 and P4 in the second practice session on Friday afternoon, and the Aussie was happy with that performance.

“It depends if that’s the real pace. If this was qualifying, we aren’t probably going to do qualifying, but if it was, I think it would be a bit of a surprise, a pleasant one,” he added.

“The car felt good. I enjoyed driving today, the circuit was fun and I think with the hypersoft, when you got grip, it’s a pretty good feeling.

“A lot of the flat corners on the track, because you don’t have any banking to give you that extra grip, coming here with the hyper gives that feeling so it’s nice. Good fun.

The Red Bull pair will start from the penultimate row of the grid in Sochi, and will be in amongst the midfield runners for the opening stint, if not longer.

“We got bit of traffic in the long runs, so we had a bit of a feeling what it’s going to be like in the race.

“It’s not the easiest track to overtake but we eventually got it done, so I think the race should be fun.”

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