Daniel Ricciardo says this weekend's Italian Grand Prix has underlined Mercedes' big strengths after the reigning world champions dominated qualifying at Monza.
Lewis Hamilton's pole position time was 0.837s quicker than the nearest non-Mercedes competitor on Saturday afternoon, with Ricciardo's Red Bull 1.254s off Hamilton in sixth. Compared to the 0.149s margin Nico Rosberg had over Max Verstappen in Spa-Francorchamps last weekend, it is proof the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field has increased significantly on arrival in Monza.
The high-speed Italian track is always a trade-off between downforce and drag, with teams bringing slimmer rear wings to maximise top speeds on the straights, but Ricciardo says Mercedes' powerful engine means they can enjoy the best of both worlds.
"This weekend they have definitely shown their strengths again," he said. "It looks like Mercedes have a pretty decent sized rear wing as well. It seems that when they want they can sort of turn it up. Then again here last year as well I remember Mercedes were on another planet. For whatever reason we expected to probably be a bit down here. Perhaps we have a bit more drag on the car as well, so maybe that is another element that hurts us here.
"Coming back to Singapore [in two weeks] I think we will be competitive again, and I still think relatively perhaps straight line speeds are not too bad, but the question is are we using less downforce than them which then masks it a little bit. If we can get top five here we will walk away pretty happy."
Rather than battling Mercedes, Ricciardo has his sights on Williams' Valtteri Bottas in fifth place on the grid instead.
"I think they'll be a contender tomorrow, Valtteri's long run yesterday looked quite good, I believe he had a new soft, but his pace seemed pretty good. I think they'll remain strong in the race, especially with their straight line speed, they'll put up a fight. Massa I think is outside the top 10, so he'll probably start on a soft and that could bring him into the race as well, so they'll be pretty strong."