Ricciardo aiming for top five finish

Daniel Ricciardo has enjoyed a solid start to his Formula 1 season and he aims to continue that by attempting to finish in the top five at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Ricciardo finished fourth in the first three races in Australia, Bahrain and China before suffering a setback in the most recent race in Russia, where he came 11th.

Despite this, the Red Bull driver still sits in fourth on the Formula 1 standings and believes that a podium finish in Barcelona will be a bonus.

Ricciardo also admitted that he is interested to see how Max Verstappen will fare in his first race for Red Bull. Verstappen was promoted at the expense of Daniil Kvyat, who will race for Toro Rosso for the remainder of the season.

“Everyone is keeping a close eye on the team this weekend to see how Max goes; I’m a small part of it, but it’s exciting,” Ricciardo told reporters. “Coming into the weekend we are expected to be the top five, so we’ll keep that goal; anything better than that will just mean bigger smiles.”

The 26-year-old also admitted that he was content with his fifth and sixth place finish in the first two free practice sessions on Friday.

“I was relatively happy; I think there is a bit more for us to find, but generally it was a good day,” he said. “I know what this car is capable of, so a few changes tonight and then tomorrow hopefully we will be a bit further up the front.

“We did a good long run on the soft and the medium, which gave us a lot of good tyre information. This has given us the info we need for tonight to make smart decisions for tomorrow.”