Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo has had to put his championship dreams on hold for the time-being, owing to the big performance gap between his team and Mercedes and Ferrari. “It’s a little bit like a 2015 scenario where you come in with a little bit more hope and you realise that’s probably getting away from you,” said the Australian. “At the moment you’ve got to throw the championship out of your mind, forget that’s a possibility and just maximise what I got. You’ve still got to stay afloat in this business. Whether we’re getting fifth places or whatever the position you’ve still got a job to do and still got a reputation to maintain. You readjust a little bit your predictions in your head but still race hard and keep everyone excited even if it’s not for a win.”

At the last race in Barcelona, Ricciardo finished on the podium, but not in the way he or Red Bull would have wanted. ‘The Honey Badger’ finished more than 70 seconds behind the two leaders Hamilton and Vettel. Red Bull had even added a number of aerodynamic features.

“We’re making slow progress,” he admitted. “Obviously there is some progress and there was a little in Spain, but we would have preferred it to be more. We’ve got more bits on the car this weekend and I think it’s more targeted to this kind of circuit, a more high-downforce circuit. I’m confident we’ll see a bit more here than we did in Barcelona.” On Thursday practice, things looked better for them as Ricciardo was second fastest, albeit half a second slower than Vettel.

“It will be hard to say it will be as good as last year’s, We’re more on the back foot. But I believe a podium’s still possible this weekend.” he said in an interview with Sky’s Natalie Pinkham.