Ricciardo expecting Mercedes to ‘turn up’ in Australia

Daniel Ricciardo has tipped Mercedes as the team to beat in this weekend’s Formula 1 season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, backing the German manufacturer to “turn up” after a quiet showing through pre-season testing.

Ferrari stole the headlines through winter testing in Barcelona with some impressive lap times, only for Mercedes’ long-run pace to signal it still held an advantage over the field.

Red Bull driver Ricciardo enters the 2018 season looking to add to his haul of five grand prix victories, and while he was happy with how testing went, the Australian still believes Mercedes will up its game come raceday in Melbourne.

“Testing was pretty good, we did a lot of laps,” Ricciardo said. “Even after the first test when I was pretty frustrated with the weather and felt like it was a bit of waste when it was snowing, we still got quite a bit done. The second week was strong.

“I still feel like the top three teams are Mercedes, Ferrari and us. I feel and hope it’s a bit more compressed, but Mercedes will probably turn up this weekend and they’ll be the ones to beat.

“But hopefully they’re not too far ahead.”

Ricciardo heads into his home grand prix weekend looking to score his first podium finish at Albert Park, after his second place in 2014 was taken away with a disqualification for exceeding a fuel flow limit, and believes a strong showing from Red Bull could set the tone to the rest of the field.

“Personally it would be awesome at my home race [to get a good result], but for the team it would be huge,” Ricciardo said.

“If the other teams are not already awake, it would get them going. So for us to have a strong one would set a statement for the year and show that we would be fighting for the championship.

“It would be awesome to get off on the right foot.”