F1: Ricciardo plans aggressive approach

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Daniel Ricciardo believes he will need to be aggressive in tomorrow's Bahrain Grand Prix in order to recover from his grid penalty that will drop him down the order.

The Red Bull driver qualified in third behind the dominant Mercedes cars, but will drop 10 places on the grid after being hit with a penalty for his unsafe release during last weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

While Ricciardo admits the priority is to score his first points of the season following a retirement at Sepang and disqualification in Australia, he thinks there is no need to be conservative tomorrow.

"I would love to charge through and have a podium, but realistically we have to get some points to start," said the Australian. "My season has been going well but I don't have any points to show for it so far.

"But in saying that, I don't think we need to be conservative, we need to push, we are out of position, we'll do what we can. If there is an opportunity to move forward I will do what I can and hopefully take away some points.

"At the moment it is pretty close between a two or three stops, maybe there is some room for us to try something."

Ricciardo outqualified team-mate Sebastian Vettel for the second time in three races, and was the only man capable of lapping within a second of Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

"I'm really pleased with the performance, it was the best anyone else could do with the two guys alongside me," he added. "We still have some ground to make on them but I am really pleased with qualifying tonight."

Originally on Autosport.com