03/07/2021
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo admits to being surprised at finishing a lowly 15th in FP2, feeling that he's actually made a step forward.
The Australian's struggles with the McLaren continue, and just a week after failing to make it past Q2, Friday's practice sessions suggest things may not be any better this time around.
The Woking team continues to work with its 'new' driver, Ricciardo's engineer constantly advising the Australian, lap after lap, what he's doing wrong and how he might improve.
Eleventh in Friday's opening session and 15th in the second, Ricciardo admits to being surprised by his relative under performance.
"I am a bit surprised with the classification," he admitted. "We're just lacking a little bit, but there's nothing that feels out of place in the car, like I assume it's probably just a little bit everywhere.
"I know there's not many corners here," he continued, "but maybe we're just missing half a tenth everywhere, then that just adds up to half a second or something, and that's what we need.
"It's probably just some fine tuning tonight. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel," he insisted. "I think like with my driving and the points that I missed out last week, and areas I was lacking, I think I definitely made a good step today.
"So it's just trying to then just make another one tomorrow, and we'll be in a decent place."
The Australian admits that he is still trying to adapt his driving style to the McLaren.
"I'm still trying to maximise the driving style that the car currently likes," he said, according to F1i. "That's what I've been trying to work on.
"We're getting there," he continued. "I think today was definitely some progress, we changed a few things with the car to kind of help me get that feeling. That was positive.
"Last Friday, we were actually looking pretty good, so if you look at the classification of last week to this week, you'll think we're miles off. Then obviously Saturday changed completely.
"I'm confident that we can move forward for tomorrow, as opposed to stay here or move back. That's why I probably feel even a bit better today, but we're obviously not there on the timesheets.
"So yeah, I'm not going to panic. A little bit of fine tuning, and I think we'll find what we need tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Spielberg, here.