The Australian has had a hard time squeezing into cars in the past, and he had a difficult baptism at McLaren as an early seat model proved a bit too tight and adjustments needed to be made.
But while the final assembly in the MCL35M has proven to be okay for the Australian, one always has to consider his hips, which were often a headache in the ultra-tight Red Bull cockpits.
“I have wide hips – I guess. I’m pretty big boned, “said Ricciardo asked about the progress since the tricky first seat adjustment.
“But I got in, so it was kind of the first model of the seat. And with the dimensions they were, they kind of assumed what would be fine with me. But it wasn’t all right.
“Fortunately, only the seat and not the actual keel itself was too narrow. Since then I’ve been able to sit in one place and I’m fit.
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Ricciardo says the teams pushed the limits in shrinking the cockpit width, his hips mean designers don’t have much more leeway.
However, he is convinced that a team’s performance deficit, if it could not streamline the cockpit sufficiently, would be more than made up for by its more composure and better driving ability.
“I have a feeling that I am certainly the limit,” he said. “I think the way they are designing the cars and the chassis now is trying to be as tight and compact as possible.
“Actually, my hips are sometimes the limiting factor. So I just tell them, ‘Make sure I’m comfortable and if you think that this will cause you to lose a tenth of the aerodynamics, then I’ll just go faster on the track!
Ricciardo had its first run in the new McLaren MCL35M during a day of shooting at Silverstone earlier this week and will be back in action next month for the first pre-season test in Bahrain.
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