Daniel Ricciardo is now possessing a “more natural connection” with his car after making progress during the second half of the season, says McLaren executive racing director Andrea Stella.
Ricciardo was tipped to make an immediate impact when he made the switch from Renault to McLaren for 2021, but struggled to adapt to the MCL35M.
He found himself consistently outperformed by team-mate Lando Norris, who sat third in the drivers’ standings 63 points ahead of Ricciardo by the summer break.
The Australian had spoken of the difficulties he faced in extracting more performance from the car, but has since got on top of his previous issues, resulting in four top-five finishes – including his victory at the Italian Grand Prix – since Hungary.
Speaking about Ricciardo’s progress in recent races, Stella felt the summer break allowed Ricciardo to understand how to get more accustomed to the behaviour of McLaren’s 2021 challenger.
“In terms of Daniel, there was quite a bit of work in terms of adaptation to the car that needed to be done,” said Stella, as quoted by The Race.
“These adaptations do take a lot of time, because the cars are very quick and you can’t drive and think in Formula 1, at least since the regulations changed [to even faster cars] in 2017. That’s why it took time.
“I think the reflection of the summer break might have helped this process of making changes to the different style required [and made it] more of a natural process.
“So we definitely saw Daniel much, much more comfortable in the car with more of a natural connection with the car.
“The racecraft has always been there and if anything we have been able to improve on that element as well.
“So for me, the main challenge is that he is now able to extract the speed more naturally.”
While Stella recognises Ricciardo’s work to turn his form around, he still believes there is more to come from the eight-time grand prix winner.
“If we talk about our expectation and Daniel’s expectation, we think that there is more to come,” said Stella.
“We still see that there are tracks, or situations, in which this is not yet as natural as we know it can be.
“So we’re happy with the improvement, and we understand why the trajectory was slow.
“We understand why now we are in a better place but we think there is more to come.
“And we need to obviously put together a lot of work, and just carry on what we’ve been doing in the last months.”
Ricciardo agreed with Stella’s view that his driving is becoming more natural, but acknowledged he isn’t “quite there” after highlighting his struggles at Turn 13 throughout the Mexican Grand Prix weekend.
“It is definitely coming more naturally to me,” Ricciardo said.
“But on my best lap in Q3 I made a mistake, a front lock into Turn 13 and lost a bit of time there. That’s something that I’m still asking from the car that isn’t quite there.
“That corner was a weakness for me and a corner where I probably should have given a little more attention to instead of just driven on pure instinct.
“But it’s definitely coming in the right direction now. I got caught out a bit but it’s happening much less now so it’s positive.”
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