After taking his third fourth place this season last weekend in Mugello, Daniel Ricciardo is hungry to go one better as he lines up the Sochi Autodrom.

What’s the plan for Sochi this weekend ?
I want to keep up the points-scoring run. My race was pretty short in Sochi last year with a bit of Turn 4 chaos. I think after that race, I remember quite vividly thinking ‘we have to do better in qualifying, so we are not in the midfield’. It wasn’t my strongest weekend last year with qualifying, so it’s something I want to put emphasis on this year, to try and get on top of the track. It’s never been my strongest circuit and there are still some tricks for me to learn on it. I’m looking forward to going back and trying to figure it out.

What do you make of the Sochi Autodrom ?
There’s a really long run towards the first real corner, which is a big braking zone. DRS is pretty big on the straight into there. It can be an action-packed race with the walls and medium to high-speed corners. It might be cooler at this time of year ; I’ll pack a hoodie or two ! It’s a flat circuit, completely different to Mugello, which is pretty up and down, and Sochi is literally the opposite. Personally, I’m looking to improve on a few personal weaknesses there.

How do you evaluate the recent races ?
We want to continue the strong run and score well this weekend. We’re in a really tight midfield fight with a number of teams with one or two tenths either way the difference between the second row of the grid or ending outside the top ten. That challenge is exciting, it means we have to find everything from within the car and make it work. We had two fourth places from the last triple header, the target remains to take those big points to keep in the championship fight.