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Daniel Ricciardo says “pure rage” allowed to him set the fastest final sector during Formula 1’s Friday qualifying session at the Italian Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver continued his improved form since the summer break by qualifying in fifth place, within 0.006s of his team-mate Lando Norris and just 0.023s adrift of Max Verstappen’s third place on the sprint race grid.
Ricciardo knew he could find time in the final sector and used “pure rage” to hustle his McLaren through the final sector to jump from fourth after the first Q3 runs to third.
This would ultimately become fifth place, as Bottas would jump from that same position to top qualifying.
“Yeah, I was angry, that was just pure rage,” when SkySportsF1 asked him about his final sector.
“Pure rage and wrestling the car. I knew there was time in the last sector, so I knew what I had there.
“But yeah, the first two were just net even. I knew I had to pull something out in the final sector.
“Thought it was enough, I was third for a short moment in time. Then it was fourth, and then fifth.
“That’s probably what hurt the most, I thought I was third. But then Tom [Stallard, Ricciardo’s engineer] told me I was fifth.”
Ricciardo added that moments of sudden “rage” like he experienced in Q3 are why he has the “honey badger” nickname.
“I do have the ability to flip and feel a lot of rage in a short moment of time,” Ricciardo added.
“That’s internally what I feel but I’m going to be smart and hold it in and use it for good reasons in the sprint.”
Ricciardo says he’s “not going to be conservative” during tomorrow’s sprint race, knowing that pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas will have to start Sunday’s race from the back, effectively leaving him a provisional P4 on the grand prix grid, depending how the sprint race unfolds.
“When the podium is in reach, you go for it,” Ricciardo said.
“I’m certainly chasing that, if we can put ourselves in track position, it’s there for the taking.”
