Daniel Ricciardo has revealed his McLaren team has limited the amount of water in his in-car drink bottle in a desperate attempt to save weight.
Most teams are believed to be running cars that are over the minimum weight, following the introduction of new rules for 2022.
It’s resulted in some extreme weight-saving measures, with a number of teams stripping paint off the cars to reduce weight. Earlier this season Aston Martin revealed it had saved 350 grams by using less paint, a significant amount in a sport where times are measured to the thousandth of a second.
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Many drivers looked spent at the end of last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, run in hot and humid Florida conditions.
Now Ricciardo has admitted he was forced to complete the race with less than the usual amount of fluid.
“We don’t have the luxury of putting three litres in the drink system,” he told motorsport.com.
“So we have a little bit, and it’s never enough fluid. So naturally, you’re gonna get dehydrated. And yeah, this heat was was pretty real.
“They’re the tough ones, obviously. I mean, everyone obviously worked hard, it is hot, drivers, mechanics, everyone’s feeling the heat.”
It was a disappointing weekend for Ricciardo’s McLaren team. Lando Norris failed to finish after a collision with Pierre Gasly, while the Australian crossed the line in 11th, only to be demoted to 13th by a post-race penalty.
It’s the fourth time in five races this season that Ricciardo has failed to score a world championship point, and he conceded he thought he was on track for a better result in Miami.
“Actually when I crossed the line, I honestly thought I was 10th,” he said. “It’s hard to know, obviously [there are] battles and cars going off here and there. But I was kind of doing a calculation in my head thinking that enough cars had kind of gone off, or I passed, to be somewhere inside the points.”
Although he’s struggled so far in 2022, closer examination of his results reveal it’s not as bad as it looks for the 32-year-old.
In Bahrain he finished ahead of Norris, and would have done likewise in Melbourne had the team not instructed him to hold station in the closing stages.
Ricciardo’s race in Saudi Arabia was ended through a mechanical issue out of his control, while his final qualifying attempt in Miami was hindered by another car problem, compromising his weekend.
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