During his stint at McLaren he got too lost in the details, says Daniel Ricciardo looking back – and wants to do things differently at AlphaTauri
When Daniel Ricciardo was still driving for McLaren, the Australian worked tirelessly on his driving style to adapt to the car – without success. Ricciardo’s three-year contract was terminated a year early last winter.
Finally, as a replacement for Nyck de Vries, he came to AlphaTauri, where he is able to use his natural driving style more again. Looking back, the 34-year-old says: “I think even in my first year at McLaren, I learned during the summer break that we probably went too much into detail.”
“We had to change the approach a little bit. It was in everyone’s interest to make it work, but I found it wasn’t working for me. After that, we probably still tried too much, but maybe it will work for another driver,” Ricciardo muses.
Efforts to change his driving style at McLaren meant that Red Bull team boss Christian Horner barely recognised him when he returned to the simulator. “It was a complete disaster,” was Horner’s first impression.
Ricciardo had to rebuild his confidence in the following runs and a tyre test at Silverstone. Asked if he found it similarly difficult to get used to the car as he did before at McLaren, Ricciardo holds: “I don’t want to get lost in the details so much again. “
At the moment he still has to get used to the AT04 completely. But after the first few races, there are positive signs: “I felt the car a bit more from the beginning. Already on the first lap I had the feeling that I was getting the feedback I might expect or like. That was important.”
“Maybe I will find things that I still need to work on, that don’t quite match my feeling. So I still expect some challenges along the way. But the first impression was that it gave me a bit more familiarity. In that, I was hoping to feel something just like that. “