11/03/2022
NEWS STORY
McLaren announces that Daniel Ricciardo will miss the second day of testing as he continues to feel unwell.
The Australian, who was meant to share driving duties on Thursday with teammate Lando Norris was excused duties after reporting unwell.
However, ahead of today's session the Woking outfit reports that though his condition has improved he will not be driving.
"In a change to our planned programme, Lando will continue driving the MCL36 this morning," said a brief release.
"Daniel began feeling unwell yesterday morning, and while signs of improvement, the team will continue to assess him before he resumes duties.
"Daniel has had several precautionary Covid-19 tests during this time, which have been negative throughout."
In all honesty, Ricciardo didn't miss much as it was a difficult day for Norris, who described it as a "tough day" following what are believed to be brake-related issues.
"A tough day with a few problems, which set us back a lot of laps meaning we couldn't do the long runs," said the youngster. "We still maximised today as much as we could and as much as what the issues allowed us to do.
"Hopefully the next few days, we can make up for that, we just have to change the programme around a little bit in how we're trying to understand the car.
"It's tricky because it's a very different circuit: a lot bumpier; a lot hotter. Cars are getting pushed to a very different limit to the past week of testing in Barcelona. There're many things for us to understand and we'll keep learning over the next couple of days."
Over the course of the session Norris completed just 50 laps, posting the sixth best time of the day.
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.