Ricciardo to push for points in Bahrain

If there’s a time for Daniel Ricciardo to unleash the real Honey Badger, this weekend is it.

With a 10-place grid penalty to overcome and zero championship points to his name, the West Australian knows he’ll need to be as ferocious as the easily-turned creature that adorns the back of his helmet if he’s to succeed in Bahrain on Sunday.

Ricciardo has been a standout in the opening two rounds of the new Formula One season, his performances outdone only by a string of mishaps at the hands of his team.

The 24-year-old was stripped of an historic podium finish at the season-opener in Melbourne for breaching fuel flow laws – a ruling being contested by Red Bull.

He then copped a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for an unsafe pit release during last week’s Malaysian Grand Prix – scuppering his chances of a likely fourth-place finish behind teammate Sebastian Vettel. A subsequent broken wing forced his eventual retirement.

The pit incident attracted a second punishment – new for 2014 – of a 10-place grid drop for this week’s race. So even if he qualifies for pole position, the best-case scenario is a sixth-row start.

“I’m going to Bahrain thinking that I have to be starting 11th, and need an aggressive start to get me back into contention,” Ricciardo told Red Bull’s website this week.

“I need to get some points on the board and that’s not going to happen if I’m cruising around in the middle of the pack.

“That said, I don’t think I need to change anything much. I think I’m driving with good intensity, so I don’t need to do anything dramatically different.”

The F1 paddock’s return to Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit comes five weeks after the final pre-season test at the same venue, where Red Bull endured a horror run.

But the Ricciardo is confident in the car’s improvement and reckons the RB10 will soon prove a real force against a dominant Mercedes outfit – the year’s only race winners via Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

“We know we’re a little bit down on straight-line speed and that really hurts somewhere like Sepang,” Ricciardo said.

“But through sector two (the twisty section) we were strong all weekend and on the pace of the Mercs. We’ll see how Bahrain treats us but once we get to China (on April 20) and – even better, Barcelona (in May) – I think we can really take the fight to them.”

Last-start victor Hamilton’s best finish at the Sakhir track was second in 2007, while Rosberg has never made the podium.

Practice begins on Friday at 10pm (AEDT).

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