Ricciardo reflects on the cause of his struggle during two-year stay in McLaren

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Daniel Ricciardo, the 33-year-old Australian who is set to join Red Bull F1 team as a reserve next year, has recently opened up on the struggles during his two-year stay in McLaren. In point of fact, speaking in an interview with a press agency, Ricciardo was quoted as saying that he could not really understand what went wrong during his two-year long stay in McLaren.

McLaren and Ricciardo decided to part ways shortly after the Summer break this season following the 33-year-old’s 18-month long poor run of form.

Ricciardo reflects on his struggles at McLaren F1 team

Speaking in the Beyond the Grid podcast, Ricciardo had reflected on his struggles at McLaren Formula 1 team.

Adding that he had had a general lack of “feel” and “feedback” while behind the wheel with McLaren F1 team, Ricciardo said in the podcast, “It all starts there. If you struggle with a corner on the exit, normally it’s a product of what’s happened through the corner that’s put you in a position of, let’s say, difficulty on the exit.

Most difficulties start on the entry – maybe not all, but most. It is kind of an entry thing, but it’s more just like a feel and a limitation. I also look back at my very first race with McLaren, [when] I out-qualified Lando.

That was when I was still fairly ‘green’ with the car, if you know what I mean. I kind of wonder, did we just get lost along the way? Did I then start to try too hard, did we try to engineer it too hard, and get away from, let’s say, my strengths and then try to drive the car a certain way, [which was] maybe a weakness for me, and something that I couldn’t really grasp.

I don’t know, it’s an interesting one. I think on both ends we struggled, in terms of the team trying to understand what it was and how to then update it and improve it. But from my side I’m also like, ‘Okay, I’m not perfect.

Sure, I’ve got some weaknesses, this car happens to expose a few of them.’ But, let’s say, I still didn’t find a way to gel at one with this car often enough. The cars certainly behaved a bit differently, but I would say the DNA of the car is still the same. Where I would struggle, it was ultimately the same thing”.