McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo describes his disappointing Monaco GP weekend as “one to forget,” and team principal Seidl says the team will help him to adapt.
Ricciardo had a shockingly poor outing in the principality, even being lapped by teammate Lando Norris on the way to a 12th-place finish. The Australian seeks to learn from his poor showing, but says that he and the team might be better off blocking the weekend’s woes from their memories.
Ricciardo also applauds teammate Norris, who achieved a podium finish in a remarkable showing which did well to highlight differences in pace between the Aussie and his younger teammate. “I think the whole weekend was one to forget,” he admitted.
“Norris and obviously the rest of the team got a podium, and I want to congratulate them. They got it right, and I’m not even necessarily sure we got it wrong, we just never got going and we didn’t really do a crazy different setup, the car is really identical from a set up point of view, and I’m not trying to be to clever with that either.
“I’ve got more to learn with this car than Lando does, so I’m not trying to be too different. [I am] trying to just follow suit and move forward with that, but yeah just a strange weekend from the get-go. [The race was] just one to forget,” Ricciardo said.
The 31-year-old called this result an anomaly, and said that he expects to be an improved version of himself come Baku. “This year there’s certainly been those races where it’s like ‘yeah, I’ve got to find a bit more but it will come,’ but this weekend was a bit of an anomaly in terms of the pace difference.
“Getting lapped [by my teammate], it might have been the first time [in my career]. I don’t know what to say. I’ll definitely look into it, but if it’s a weekend like this, and I’m as far off as I was, it’s probably best that I just step away. There’s differences on the data and this is why Lando’s quicker in that corner and I see that.
“But I’m not convinced I’m able to do that. But we’ll see. Maybe it’s still a bit of me trying to get used to the car, but I’m sure they’ll check everything as well. As you say, when it’s that far off, it’s a bit tough,” summed up Ricciardo, as team boss Seidl discussed about the car needing a way to drive, which the Australian is still mastering.
Seidl noted that while Ricciardo has managed to adjust to a certain extent, it needed to be drive in a certain way in Monaco, which didn’t help. “I think this track simply emphasises even more the struggles he’s still having with our car and looking at the data we have a clear idea of what the issue is,” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net.
“Our car simply needs a certain way of how to drive it in order to extract maximum performance. Lando Norris is obviously used to it and manages it. But it just doesn’t feel natural for Daniel Ricciardo with everything he has is driven in the past. It’s simply important to stay calm, even after a disappointing result like today, keep working together as one team, keep analysing the data, keep learning from them.
“And then have let’s say two actions in place, which is trying together with Daniel to recalibrate him to a certain degree in order to adjust his driving style for our car. But of course we look also on the team side to see if we can adjust the car in order to make it more natural for him to drive fast so that he has to think less, without obviously compromising the overall performance.
“I think if you look back since the beginning of the season, we have made good steps forward with him. But in order to drive our car fast at the moment, you need a special driving style which is not natural for Daniel. That’s why it’s not so easy for him to get the laps in and extract the performance.
“We simply have to keep working together now as one team: stay calm, keep analysing, and keep learning. And then there are two things, which is him further adapting to our car. Because obviously, he sees that the potential is there, which is I think the positive thing for him to see that, and then we can pull it off. Then, at the same time, we will look at the team side as well and what we can do in order to help him on the car side, to give him back his natural feeling which you need to go fast,” summed up Seidl.
Here’s the video of the moment he was lapped: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-monaco-grand-prix-norris-waves-as-he-laps-mclaren-team-mate-ricciardo.1700559869762791776.html
Here’s Lando Norris on track limits fear and radio shut call
