Ricciardo hit the wall twice "awesome" F1 sprint qualifying in Miami

On Friday, Ricciardo provided the latest indication that he is starting to turn the corner after a difficult start to the 2024 season.

Ricciardo’s more promising pace in China was not rewarded after a clash with Lance Stroll, but during sprint qualifying in Miami the Australian took a surprising fourth starting spot for Saturday morning’s 19-lap race .

He finished four tenths behind polesitter Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, revealing he made contact with the wall during his SQ2 and SQ3 laps.

“I feel really good,” Ricciardo told F1.com. “I’m happy with the second row, it’s great. On the first lap of SQ1 I made a mistake, so we were putting a bit of pressure on ourselves, but we built from there.

“Max was surprised to be P1 with his ride and I was surprised to be P4 with mine. I expected more from the softs, but it didn’t give much more than the mediums.

“We expected everyone to go a lot faster and they didn’t. I also hit the wall for both laps, so I told the team I was definitely trying to ‘get the most out of it.’

“I don’t know if it made me faster or not, but we were going at it and I had good confidence in the car.”

Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01

Photo by: Alexandre Trienitz

Ricciardo is still looking for his first points of the campaign and hopes he can convert his fourth starting place into a solid haul, with the top eight earning sprint points.

“I would love to be more than eighth, for sure, I would like to get some points from it,” he said.

“We’ll see what happens. I experienced it in Mexico, starting from the front is much more pleasant than starting 12th or 13th.

Read also:

“[Compared to] Being involved in a bit of chaos in the first lap, staying a bit cleaner up front is like a breath of fresh air.

His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was eliminated in 15th place in SQ2 after struggling to put together a clean enough lap.

“The pace was good in SQ1, so the car was there,” Tsunoda said.

“We didn’t optimize it and I probably didn’t have everything in place either. I think doing two push laps would have been better for us, that’s the main problem.”