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F1 US GP: Ricciardo: Red Bull, Ferrari swings confusing

Daniel Ricciardo admits it is 'confusing' to predict who will have the advantage between Ferrari and Red Bull when arriving at different tracks going on recent races and expects the United States Grand Prix to be no different.

After seeing Ferrari as a much more competitive package in Japan than predicted, while Red Bull has largely surprised its rivals at power-dependent tracks when expected to be off the pace, Ricciardo says it isn't straightforward to know who will have the edge in the battle for second behind Mercedes.

Ricciardo paid credit to Ferrari's performance at Suzuka, while throwing a small criticism at Sebastian Vettel for underperforming despite his grid penalty, and says it is confusing to predict who can wrestle the advantage at the Circuit of the Americas circuit which combines both tight and twisty parts with high speed straights.

"Ferrari have been extremely fast lately. In Japan they did a very good job. Probably quicker than we expected," Ricciardo said. "But is has been a bit like that. Some places we have been quicker where we did not expect. But then we've gone to places like Japan where we thought we would be quicker than them and we weren't necessarily.

"So it is still a bit confusing for everyone to know who has got the better package and what tracks suit who, but maybe they just got it right that weekend and put it altogether."

"Seb still did not end up with a podium. I have not watched the complete race but it looked like he had a car for the podium, so they probably underachieved what the car was capable of.

"Nonetheless I expect them to be pretty quick here. It is going to be close again, it is sort of just guess work now. The high speed stuff in sector 1 is in a way similar to what we have in Suzuka Sector 1, and they were pretty strong there, so we will have our work cut out." 

Zdroj: crash.net