Ricciardo: We need to keep working on a few areas

Ricciardo: We need to keep working on a few areas

Jad Mallak 1 min read

Ricciardo: We need to keep working on a few areas

Daniel Ricciardo was on duty for McLaren on the second day of Formula 1 pre-season testing, and admits there are a few areas on which the team still needs to work.

The Australian will be looking to get a good handle of the team’s MCL36 after notably struggling with last year’s MCL35M.

Ricciardo finished the day third in the timing screens with a best lap of 1:20.288, as he racked up 126 laps, with reliability seemingly a strong aspect of the 2022 McLaren F1 car.

Ricciardo spoke of his day on the team’s press release: “A good day from many angles. I think reliability was great.

“That’s on the team and everyone who’s worked hard to put this car together, so massive thank you to them. They’re pretty awesome to build a whole new car, put it on track and have it run so smoothly, so big thanks to them again,” the Aussie paid tribute to his team’s hard work.

“Both days have been over 100 laps, which for me and Lando gives us more opportunity to learn the car and push ourselves, so really pleased with that.

“We’ve got some good strengths and we just need to keep working on a few of the areas where we can improve,” Ricciardo concluded.

McLaren conducted a series of tests and acquires lots of information

Reflecting on McLaren’s second day of testing was team Executive Director of Racing, Andrea Stella, who is happy with the team’s learning curve with the new car.

“Our second day of testing in Barcelona has been very productive,” he said. “With Daniel in the car today, we were able to put together a lot of laps with no particular problems, either from an operational or a reliability point of view.

“We’ve completed a series of tests and acquired a lot of information on tyre performance, set-up and aerodynamics,” the racing director revealed.

“We’re learning more about this new car with each run, and this is helping us extract the most from the MCL36 in preparation for the season ahead,” Stella concluded.