We only need some fine-tuning, says Ricciardo after opening day

Visa RB driver Daniel Ricciardo sounded a positive note after the opening day in Montreal, claiming that his team only needs to "fine-tune some bits and pieces" after encouraging running on the opening day of the Canadian Grand Prix.

Daniel Ricciardo had an encouraging first day in Montreal. The Australian, who secured his first career victory in Canada ten years ago, finished the opening session in P11 before taking fifth in the second one-hour session.

The Perth-born driver was delighted with the setup of his car, claiming that he will not change much on his VCARB01 for Saturday.

“It was a good day and I’m feeling pretty good; just before FP1, it was looking like we might not do any driving today, so I’m happy ending the day doing quite a few laps in FP2 on both compounds.

"We feel like we’re in a good place, so I don’t think we’re going to do too much tonight, just fine-tuning some bits and pieces. The track dried pretty quickly this morning and is also a lot smoother than it used to be, so it seems to be a bit easier on the tyres.

"I think if it’s going to be these mixed conditions tomorrow, it will be important to be on the right tyre at the right time," said the eight-time F1 race winner.

His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda had a quite day, but he also looked competitive in his car. The Japansese, who scored points in the last three races, set a 1m16.951s on Pirelli's soft tyres to finish in P8 in the second practice session.

“As a team, it was a positive day. For myself, there are still a couple of things to improve but overall, it was a very fun day because of the several condition changes. It was good training and learning for myself, especially driving the intermediate tyres in wet conditions because we haven’t had much wet running this year.

"It was also good data collecting. As we know, everyone was doing different things but looking at our pace we’re not in a bad place. I still felt as though we were able to perform well in rainy conditions, so I’m confident in both wet and dry.

"As always, there are some things from today’s runs to improve on, and the midfield is still very tight, but we’ll continue doing what we’ve been doing for the last races, finetune certain areas and put it all together tomorrow," said the Japanese driver.

Visa RB Racing Director, Alan Permane echoed the words of his drivers, saying that the team arrived in Montreal with a good baseline setup for the unique layout of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

"It was a good day, both drivers were happy with their car. We, of course like everyone, ran in both dry and wet conditions. We chose not to run on the full wet tyres but used the intermediate in both FP1 and FP2, and we’re happy.

"We’ve got a decent car and baseline, and obviously will be looking overnight to see what we can do to improve further.

"We are expecting more rain tomorrow and possibly on Sunday, but we are satisfied with the work we’ve done today. A lot of that work has come from what we learned in Monaco but also simulator sessions after Monaco, so we’re particularly happy that it translated to a good car on track today," said Permane.