Ricciardo to Piastri: Just go out and drive

The eight-time Formula 1 race winner left McLaren at the end of the 2022 season, one year before his contract expiry, after two disappointing years being beaten by Lando Norris.

McLaren will field rookie and Formula 2 Champion Oscar Piastri alongside Norris in 2023, and his predecessor had some words of advice for him on how to tackle his debut season at Woking.

Speaking to Beyond The Grid podcast, Ricciardo was asked about some words of wisdom to say to Piastri; he said: "I think just go out and drive. I know that sounds like a really lazy response but it’s just go and drive.

"Learn, be a sponge, but drive," he went on. "Don’t see the bar too high for yourself, if you end up doing better than maybe what you thought, awesome, but just take it race by race. But as long as you are learning and you feel like you are improving every race, I think that is all you can kind of ask for yourself."

Ricciardo is hoping that his struggles, the work he did with the engineers at McLaren will over the past two seasons, and the knowledge gained would be shared with Piastri, maybe giving him some advantage.

"I think also even if we didn’t quite get it right from my side, with McLaren I think they still would’ve learnt a bunch from our two years, and maybe things where we deviated, went a little wrong or sideways," the Honey Badger said.

"So, I think all that, that knowledge can be passed on to Oscar and I think they will. I would like to think they will have a little bit of a head start from that point of view," Ricciardo concluded.

It seems relations between the two Aussies are all good, with no hard feelings after the younger replaces the veteran at McLaren, as they were spotted sharing a McLaren sports car in Melbourne (photo above), with Piastri at the wheel. Ricciardo sharing all his experience?