Formula 1

McLaren development will benefit from Ricciardo confidence gain

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl believes Daniel Ricciardo's improved comfort in the car will be a boost to the team's development, as it will be able to start tapping into the Australian's vast experience.

Filip Cleeren Filip Cleeren

Edited: Feb 11, 2022, 6:44 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M

Ricciardo had a slow start to his McLaren stint after moving over from Renault, being outraced by teammate Lando Norris while he tried to get comfortable in the 2021-spec MCL35M.

But at last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix Ricciardo claimed he had made a "mini breakthrough" with the car, which he translated into a seventh place in qualifying and a sixth place at the finish, two spots in front of Norris.

After the race Ricciardo said Barcelona was "definitely a more encouraging weekend" as he had been able to take "a little step forward".

Team boss Seidl agreed it was "good to see that Daniel felt a lot more comfortable in the car", not just for the team's immediate results in its P3 fight against Ferrari, but also for its long-term car development.

With Ricciardo increasingly confident in the car, he will be able to shift more attention towards helping McLaren with his 10-year F1 experience as the team prepares for 2022's new regulations cycle.

"For sure one reason why we wanted to get Daniel on board was because he obviously has a lot of experience and he knows what he needs as a driver from the car in order to go fast, "Seidl said.

"And therefore I'm really looking forward to the race weekends where he feels really comfortable with the car, because then I think we will see the real benefit not just in terms of speed but also in terms of his experience helping us to keep developing the car further together with Lando.

"As a team boss what I need is simply two drivers that are pushing each other, that are pushing the other cars on track. Because if you want to stay in this fight in the constructors' championship, you need to have always two cars being there, with two drivers being always in position to score good points."

Read Also:

Seidl expects it will be a matter of time before Ricciardo is up and running on all cylinders but praised the Australian for staying calm during his challenging start at Woking.

"I'm obviously very happy with how it went in terms of integration of Daniel into our team," Seidl explained.

"I think we all know what personality Daniel is, which character he is, so I wouldn't say that it's a surprise how he approached these challenging first races with us.

"I think also on the team side everyone who was involved in this integration process engineering side or the garage side did a great job in order to stay also calm.

"We are not there yet where we want to be, where Daniel wants to be but as I said many times I'm 100 percent convinced it's just a matter of more races and then we will see performance as we are used to from Daniel."

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article The car that ended Nigel Mansell’s F1 career

Next article Baku would welcome hosting future F1 sprint races

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

NASCAR Cup title contenders living on a prayer at Talladega

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Talladega II

41 min

NASCAR Cup title contenders living on a prayer at Talladega

F1 United States GP live commentary and updates - Follow Q3

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

1 h

F1 United States GP live commentary and updates - Follow Q3

Colton Herta savours "super special" Austin homecoming as 2027 uncertainty remains

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

1 h

Colton Herta savours "super special" Austin homecoming as 2027 uncertainty remains

NASCAR Cup Talladega starting lineup: Chase Briscoe beats Austin Hill for pole

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Talladega II

3 h

NASCAR Cup Talladega starting lineup: Chase Briscoe beats Austin Hill for pole

Feature

Discover prime content

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 United States GP

Formula 1

United States GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 United States GP

Max Verstappen’s words explained: Why Red Bull’s turnaround is so different this time

Formula 1

United States GP

By Ronald Vording

Max Verstappen’s words explained: Why Red Bull’s turnaround is so different this time

Mission control: Inside the FIA and F1's latest answer to football's VAR

Formula 1

United States GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

Mission control: Inside the FIA and F1's latest answer to football's VAR

How Kimi Antonelli levelled up his character to be F1 2026's world champion-elect

Formula 1

United States GP

By Filip Cleeren

How Kimi Antonelli levelled up his character to be F1 2026's world champion-elect

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts