Ricciardo did not “underestimate” the difficulty of the McLaren F1 switch

Ricciardo, who joined McLaren from Renault this off-season, has so far struggled to keep up with teammate Lando Norris on the first two F1 weekends of 2021.

At the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix last weekend, Ricciardo was asked to replace Norris in the battle for fifth place. Norris was on the podium while Ricciardo stayed in sixth place.

After his second race with McLaren, Ricciardo said he was not underestimating the time it would take to familiarize himself with the Woking team as he faced the same problem when he originally switched from Red Bull to Renault.

“I don’t think I underestimated it,” Ricciardo told Sky Sports F1. “You know, I was very aware of this when I switched from Red Bull to Renault.

Unfortunately, it will only take a little time. But you know, the season is long. I think it’s just race two.

“Of course I want to be faster, but when I look back on race seven and race two, I probably just giggle. Don’t panic, I’ll just work on it.”

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Carlos Sainz, the man Ricciardo replaces at McLaren, has similar problems at Ferrari and believed his progress was just a matter of “more experience and more laps”, which was not achieved by cutting pre-season tests from six to three days was supported.

Ricciardo’s team boss Andreas Seidl said that the calm start of his new driver was no surprise given the lack of tests, but he supported the Australian to find the limit within the next race weekends.

“We know that it is not easy to jump from one car to another when you only have one and a half days of testing,” said Seidl.

“These cars are complex and then, to find those last two, three, four tenths, when you are really not comfortable pushing these cars to their limits, finding these cars and getting out of them is not that easy . This will need time.

“But that’s no surprise. It’s part of the process of adding a new driver.

And I think with the experience that Daniel has, with the experience that we have in the team, it is only a question of three more race weekends, and then I am sure that Daniel will also feel completely at home in our car . “