After claiming a second career pole position in Monaco, Daniel Ricciardo says there was no need for him to overdrive his Red Bull due to the performance advantage it had over the rest of the field.
Red Bull has been the class of the field since opening practice on Thursday with Ricciardo topping each of the three sessions prior to qualifying. Ricciardo looked set to be in a titanic fight with teammate Max Verstappen for pole position until the Dutchman crashed out in the latter stages of FP3, meaning he was unable to take part in qualifying after his mechanics were unable to repair his damaged car in time for Q1.
Ricciardo was the only man to break into the 1:10 bracket and the Aussie stressed the importance of not overdriving the car when it is performing so well.
"It's always in the back of your mind here, I guess because the risk and reward is very real and it was proven this morning,'' Ricciardo replied when asked whether Verstappen's crash weighed on his mind. "It's one of those things. It's there but it's at the back of your mind because to be fast you can't think about those things.
"Knowing we've had a great package all weekend, obviously we need to push it but I don't think we need to overdrive it as obviously the car is performing well. Just hit your marks and keep it clean I guess. Obviously we are all pushing each other particularly myself and Max in the same team. It's no surprise these things can happen and as I said when we are lapping 1:10s, 1:11s, there's very little room for error.''
For the first time in 2018 Pirelli has brought the hyper-soft tyres to a race weekend -- the softest compound available. Ricciardo is confident with how Red Bull fared in the race simulations during second practice and is sure the majority of the teams will look to do a single stop in Sunday's race despite some of the issues faced on the hyper-softs on heavy fuel.
"Thursday seemed mixed for everyone, some people suffered a lot, I think graining at the front. We didn't do a very long run but what we did was OK. I am OK for tomorrow, I feel confident, I think we will still be able to one-stop.''