Daniel Ricciardo says he’s learned plenty from his struggles in 2021, which he also used to influence the design of the all-new McLaren for 2022.
Speaking at the launch of the MCL36, the car he and Lando Norris will campaign this season, the Australian acknowledged the gulf between the teammates in 2021.
Norris finished sixth in the championship and recently signed a contract extension to stay with McLaren until 2025, while Ricciardo, despite winning at Monza, was down in eighth spot.
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“There’s a lot I can use from that moving forward, simply because yeah, it kind of occurred to me that I didn’t really know my strengths,” he said, per Autosport.
“I knew that I could be very fast – but I thought maybe because I have got bigger balls in the high-speed corners and I just care less! I don’t know.
“But going through it, I realised OK, this is what made me fast in years past. This is what actually gives me confidence in the car, and this is actually where I’m better than others, in this part, and that was at times when I couldn’t do it in the car, so that’s kind of how I discovered that.”
Ricciardo said the difficulties he faced meant he tried to influence the team as they set about designing the car for 2022.
“From very early on, from when I first got into the car, I was relaying information on this is what is different to the Renault or the Red Bull, so I was already kind of feeding information,” Ricciardo said.
“As we were more races deep in, I was still kind of not doing as well as I thought, so I was beating it a little bit louder. The positive was that Lando was also in agreement to that, and he would have like to have these attributes as well in the car, and what we could do with it.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on that for this year’s car, but it’s also a whole new car so we don’t know if that is also the best way to drive this car.
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