Daniel Ricciardo is certain he would have beaten Sebastian Vettel to third on the grid in Monaco were it not for a miscommunication with Red Bull in qualifying.

Ricciardo will line up alongside former team-mate Vettel after finishing 0.192s behind the Ferrari driver in Q3, a gap he feels would have been wiped out had he been on the correct engine mode at the start of his final lap.

"Long story short I guess people thought I was in a different engine mode, which I wasn't," Ricciardo explained. "So then when they told me to make the standard change, it's put us out of the correct one. So then starting the lap, I could feel the power was down, so I realised we were in the wrong one, so then I've turned it back, but the switch was too late.

"Long story short, before Turn 1 we were two tenths down and that was out so it was all a bit late. I was +2.1 on my dash so just over two tenths. To be fair to the engineers, it was the first time it's happened. It's probably just Monaco, the heat of Monaco so to speak got the best of them today so that was. To be honest Q1/Q2 it's all smooth. I hadn't heard a call out of Turn 16, so I was already thinking 'alright', and then I got out of Rascasse and I got the call. Then I was like 'OK, there's a bit going on here'. It was frustrating."

Despite his frustrations at having to settle for fourth, Ricciardo is in a buoyant mood about his podium chances if he can beat Vettel into Turn 1.

"If we can get the start we need tomorrow I'm confident we can hold ... if we were to jump Seb, I'm confident we could have his pace. So yeah, after Mercedes I think we're there. I think have max downforce on helps, you can drive through some of the driveability issues just because you've got a bit more traction.

"To be fair to Renault, they took a bit step after Melbourne. Melbourne was nowhere and it got a lot better in Malaysia. Since then, it's just been getting better and better ... it's still not perfect, but it's getting better. If I compare it to last year, there's still some places which we need to improve. Some corners here last year I felt we weren't as competitive.

"I don't feel we've made a massive step in some areas. Compared to Barcelona it's a lot closer. It's definitely a lot closer and the car is definitely more driveable and you can feel the grip a bit more in the low speed, but we're still trying to optimise it all."