According to Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull cannot afford to be lower than the second row for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Australian is hoping to capitalise on the team’s victory shot this weekend.

Ricciardo led the first practice session and was third in FP2 behind teammate Max Verstappen.

the gap between Verstappen and Vettel was 0.074s even though Ricciardo is using an older-specification Renault engine. Despite being a couple of tenths off the pace, he is confident that Red Bull can overcome their qualifying deficit.

“Mercedes will find more on one lap, Ferrari already seem fast,” said Ricciardo. “They are probably the target everyone’s trying to chase.”

Verstappen agreed as he knew that the overtaking difficulty in Hungary places more emphasis on qualifying.

Ricciardo is of the opinion that if they have the quicker car, things will fall into place. But he can guarantee that it would be “a difficult race” if Red Bull were 5th or lower.

“We don’t want to make too much work for ourselves,” said the Australian. “Tomorrow’s an important day. Front row’s the objective, top two rows we can still manage.

Ferrari and Red Bull were almost neck and neck at the top of the leaderboard. Meanwhile, the two Mercedes drivers were down in fifth and sixth place.

Admittedly, the Hungaroring is not one of Mercedes’ strongest circuits. However, Verstappen refused to count out Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. This revelation was inspite of the fact that they were 0.753s and 1.034s off the pace respectively. But, Saturday could be a different story.

“They couldn’t get a lap together on the ultras, they both went a bit wide in the middle [sector],” said Verstappen.

He added: “We look competitive of course with our car, but if it’s going to be enough to compensate that from the straightline losses here, I’m not sure.”