Ricciardo shrugs off penalty, Mercedes quickest in FP2

Valtteri Bottas edged out team-mate Lewis Hamilton in FP2 at Interlagos, where Daniel Ricciardo is set to be hit with a grid penalty.

Published : Nov 10, 2018 10:26 IST

The Brazilian GP will be Daniel Ricciardo's penultimate race for Red Bull before he joins Renault for next season.
The Brazilian GP will be Daniel Ricciardo's penultimate race for Red Bull before he joins Renault for next season.
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The Brazilian GP will be Daniel Ricciardo's penultimate race for Red Bull before he joins Renault for next season.

Daniel Ricciardo shrugged off his five-place grid penalty after Valtteri Bottas headed a Mercedes one-two in the second practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Friday.

The luckless Red Bull driver will be penalised at Interlagos due to the fitting of a new turbocharger following damage done when a marshal sprayed a fire extinguisher on the rear of his car when he retired in Mexico last time out.

Ricciardo, who started on pole in Mexico, took his latest setback on the chin ahead of the Australian's penultimate race for Red Bull before he joins Renault for next season.

"I got a call last week, and the team made me aware of it," Ricciardo said.

"I can laugh about it now, because it has just been the trend lately. What do you do? It's out of my control. We'll just try to make the best of the weekend.

"Obviously I've had a few days to digest that now, so I've come to terms with it. I'll just try to qualify well like I did in Mexico and try and race hard. We had a good car this afternoon in the long run, so that gives me confidence to race well on Sunday."

Bottas was just 0.003 seconds quicker than world champion Lewis Hamilton in FP2. Sebastian Vettel's quickest lap was only another 0.07secs slower as Ferrari attempt to keep the battle for the constructors' title alive.

The session was held up when Nico Hulkenberg lost control at the final turn and smashed into a guard rail, though he walked away unscathed.

 

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