Listen to this article Mercedes’ George Russell has singled out McLaren and Ferrari as the two teams to watch from early running, as he admits the reigning constructors’ champions are a step behind at the moment. But even though teams have not yet started to fully explore the performance potential of their cars, Ricciardo said there is an underlying feeling of optimism about the new MCL36 – even though he does not know who has the fastest car right now. “It’s hard to quantify who’s ahead at the moment,” he said. “One of the things you want is laps and we’ve [himself and Lando Norris] had both days over 100 laps. So we’re in a good position from that point of view with reliability, and the more laps we do, the more things we can test and learn from the car. “I think we’re in a good place from that point of view. And we seem to be up at the pointy end of the times. “But I don’t think Mercedes or Red Bull have really done anything showing any cards yet, so I don’t really look too much at the times …

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