Daniel Ricciardo believes rain will provide Red Bull's best opportunity of challenging Mercedes for a win at this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo recorded the fourth and fifth best times in FP1 and FP2 respectively during Friday practice at Interlagos and managed to get within four tenths of Lewis Hamilton's front running pace in the morning session. The Australian says he did not expect Red Bull to be so close to Mercedes but admits he is hoping for the forecasted wet weather to intervene on Sunday.
"We are a bit closer than we expected," Ricciardo said. "They are half a second, and there is a bit more to improve with the car, but the rain will help us. If we really want a chance to win that will be the way to go."
Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, who split the Mercedes duo in the opening session and was just 0.096s off Hamilton's best time, also feels that rain will offer Red Bull's best chance of taking a third victory in 2016.
"FP1 was good, then we made some changes and that didn't really work out in the short run so we went back on them. In the long run it was OK. We are still not close enough to them but, as I think it will rain on Sunday and that should bring some excitement."