Daniel Ricciardo has revealed a "brave" decision with set-up brought big rewards in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.

From pole 12 months ago with Red Bull, the Australian will start sixth for Sunday's race in Monte Carlo, following Pierre Gasly's grid penalty.

That marks Ricciardo's best start position since joining Renault but he explained how different their prospects looked just a few hours earlier.

“On Thursday night, if you would’ve made a deal with me that I would be seventh in qualifying, then I would’ve accepted it,” he admitted to the media.

“I always knew we could be better, but nothing was ever guaranteed. At that time we were about eight tenths off our rivals, and to get into Q3 we needed to find about half-a-second from where we were on Thursday at least."

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Knowing how crucial a good qualifying is in Monte Carlo, Ricciardo and Renault decided to take a gamble.

“We made a bit of a step this morning, but it still wasn’t enough. I think we had to do something else [setup-related] in qualifying as well, otherwise being conservative wasn’t really going to assist us anywhere," he explained.

“We made a few brave changes for qualifying. I think it worked, but also we just took a good rhythm from Q1 and just took it and built on that.

“We went in a direction that was more as far as I’ve gone [previously], now we’ve gone the step further with some mechanical stuff that I haven’t really run with for a while, but it all made sense on paper that we needed to do it.

“I guess I got to the level I needed to at the right moment and that’s all that counts.”

Frustratingly for Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen just beat him to the 'best of the rest' position for Haas in fifth.