Ricciardo: I thought we were fast, then I saw Lewis

The first two free practice sessions took place at the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard yesterday afternoon and Daniel Ricciardo admits he thought Red Bull's times were fast...that was until he seen the time of Lewis Hamilton, who blew away the grid with his best lap.

Hamilton endured a disappointing weekend in the last GP in Canada and finished fifth, a considerable distance away from the eventual winner Sebastian Vettel.

Mercedes were meant to have their first engine change of the season like every other team before Montreal, but it didn't come, much to the team's detriment.

Now the Silver Arrows have their upgrade, and Ricciardo admits he was surprised at the pace of the 2017 world champion.

“I thought we were relatively fast, but then we saw the time of Lewis and the long runs were a bit more up and down. We have a bit of work to do tonight but it wasn't a bad Friday actually,” Ricciardo admitted.

“The time to Lewis in this session (FP2) now was a bit too big, but actually our day was pretty productive. Obviously Lewis was pretty quick (so) that’s a bit of a shame, he obviously did a good lap.

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“Hopefully they used it (the new engine) today. If they’re going to go quicker, then it looks like everyone is chasing them this weekend. I guess for them it’s working. I don’t know where Valtteri (Bottas) was but obviously Lewis’ time was pretty fast.”

Ricciardo went on to assess Red Bull's own performance in the free practice sessions, and says there are improvements that need to be made if they are to keep pace with Mercedes.

“I think we can keep improving," the Australian continued.

"Today was a good day to get a lot of information. I think the downforce level is a question mark. Maybe we have a look and change that. I think it was a good Friday so hopefully it will be a better weekend.

“I think (we can learn) quite a bit. Across cars we changed a few things for this afternoon so I think we got a good bit of data to look at between myself and Max (Verstappen) to try and figure out a direction.

“Downforce levels is a big one, so that’s probably one of the big things we will assess tonight to try and learn which way is better.”