Daniel Ricciardo noted about having maintain position towards the end of F1 Australian GP after problems for Lando Norris, but overall happy with double.
For McLaren, the F1 Australian GP ended up being a great weekend where Norris was fifth and local hero Ricciardo was sixth. Both drivers were impressive in qualifying too. It seems like bit by bit they are improving which is always positive to see, but if it is the true picture or not, it remains to be seen.
However, a good result it may be, it was not all plain sailing for the Woking outfit. While the exact issue which troubled Norris is not clear, but Ricciardo alluded to a radio messages towards the end where he had to maintain position after the Brit slowed down in the last few laps while driving around the problems.
Post-race, Ricciardo did joke about hustling Norris but he was happy to see McLaren have score the double points in his home event. “Satisfied enough I would say, definitely I mean look it’s by far our best result of the season personally and as a team result, so it was good,” said Ricciardo to TV media. “I think the first part of the race I thought maybe we had a bid for Mercedes and we were kind of there with them and holding their DRS but then as the race story kind of progressed we just kind of knew that was probably our pace and it looked like a bit of a photo finish.
“I was told Lando had a few issues towards the end obviously he slowed down quite a lot, so the team said be sensible. So I had to control myself a little bit but of course like a fifth and a six is a massive result obviously for us so far. This year if you would have said this in Bahrain, I probably would have laughed sarcastically, so very happy with this progress,” summed up Ricciardo.
One of the sports happier and more charismatic drivers and his happiness is always easy to notice in the Paddock. A great team result after the disappointments of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. “It’s better, I think also after the first two weekends I was still quite upbeat and positive and everyone was like why you’re so happy right no,” stated Ricciardo.
“But I know it can turn around so quickly in this sport and with rule changes, we’re still trying to get on top of the car and no one really knows I think all there is to know about it, so I was aware that we could have a weekend like this maybe not this soon but soon enough and happy that we were able to do it here and just keep chipping at it obviously there’s still things I can get better at but all good,” summed up Ricciardo.
For the other half of the McLaren duo, Norris followed up his Saudi result of seventh by going two places better and taking fifth. Progress, slow that it may seem but still a step in the right direction, but the Brit remained realistic about their chances, much like how he was in Saudi Arabia.
“It was a bit difficult race, we had quite a few problems which we had to manage which wasn’t ideal but we had decent pace in the car so when you pushing a little bit more,” said Norris, who started from fourth on the grid after an excellent qualifying. However, his start was sluggish being passed by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and latterly George Russell.
“It was mostly lack of grip, bit of wheel-spin off the line, sometimes you have good starts and sometimes slightly worse, it’s that simple,” said Norris. “It was one of the worse starts. It always fluctuates with everyone as today we lost out to the Mercedes but they had much better pace than us so it did not matter too much.
“Overall, I think we have made some small steps as a team and everyone is working very hard to make these steps forward but at the same time it is not too many things different but it is just that the car works very well here. There is a lot of positives that we can take away. We just have to work on the negatives.
“Like, if we went back to Bahrain, we would still be P13 in qualifying and we finished two laps down. The cars exactly the same…which is the problem,” summed up Norris. Both the drivers are pinning hope of some of the upgrades being worked upon.
Here’s Lando Norris on downforce lack