Red Bull "starting to come alive", says Ricciardo

Ricciardo recorded Red Bull's best laptime of Barcelona testing so far on the opening day of week two, the Aussie managing a 1m19.900s on ultrasoft tyres.

It was not enough for the RB13 to top the day's timesheets as Felipe Massa went two tenths clear in the Williams on supersofts - but Ricciardo was still positive about the progress made.

"Generally we’re happy with what we got this morning in terms of where we were last week. I feel like the car is starting to come alive more," Ricciardo said.

"It’s feeling better and better each day. The feeling is getting better and I feel the car is starting to evolve a bit, so that is nice.

"I’m not sure we are quite on Mercedes or Ferrari level yet but, yeah, we’re getting there."

Ricciardo assured Red Bull wasn't hiding a huge amount of performance: "At the moment there’s no big secret or anything. We’re not sort of holding two seconds in our pocket.

"But yeah, we definitely feel we still can get more out of the car - but I think probably everyone can. Hopefully not Williams, hopefully that was their best today.

"But, I think, you know, Ferrari, Mercedes obviously can still get more out of theirs."

Soft tyre performance

While Ricciardo's best time of the day on Tuesday came on ultrasofts, the Australian was most impressed with how his RB13 got on with the soft compound Pirelli tyre.

"I felt we performed well on the softs this morning," he said. "We did quite a few good runs on that.

"We had the most of our runs on that tyre, but that was a tyre we got quite a bit out of, I felt. We tried supersofts and ultrasofts as well - we actually went slower with the supersoft.

"On the ultrasoft we went a bit quicker, but not so much. So I would say we learned something for sure, but the soft was a good tyre."

Melbourne shaping up to be "a nice little story"

Responding to Lewis Hamilton's suggestion that Ferrari is the current favourite, Ricciardo said: "I think they certainly look quick. They look quick. I’m sure Mercedes will still be very quick - but yeah, they’re looking good.

"Even though Williams didn’t run much last week, I think today they did a good run in - I actually think they looked quite good as well. Today they showed that.

"It’s going to be interesting, I think. Melbourne will be a nice little story."

Asked where Red Bull will fit in among the front-running teams, Ricciardo added: "Not sure. But we're thereabouts. We're close enough."

Additional reporting by Erwin Jaeggi