Daniel Ricciardo plays down Red Bull early season hopes

Daniel Ricciardo believes his Red Bull team are not far off Mercedes but the Silver Arrows are still the team to beat in 2018.

Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time on the second day of the second test, breaking the unofficial Circuit de Catalunya lap record in the process.

Despite this show of pace, Ricciardo said: "I'm sure Mercedes are still the top dogs at the moment but I don't think we are far off.

"If we keep finding a few more things we can be very good."

The Australian completed the most laps of any driver on Wednesday, totalling 165 laps of the Spanish track.

"We will find out in Melbourne but while I think Mercedes still have a bit on us I don't think it's too much.

"Ferrari, I would guess are close too. I think we are similar to them."

Ricciardo set his record breaking lap on the pink striped hyper-soft tyres, the new softest compound for 2018.

The Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas set their fastest times of the day on the ultra-softs, whilst Vettel was only on the softs.

We could well see anyone from Mercedes or Ferrari re-break the track record in the remaining two days of testing.