Ricciardo: A “truly sad” race in Barcelona
By finishing in a mediocre 12th position, Daniel Ricciardo admitted to lacking pace throughout the entire Spanish Grand Prix.
Struggling since his arrival at McLaren in 2021, Daniel Ricciardo continues his disappointing streak. With only 11 points, putting him in 12th place in the drivers’ standings, the comparison with his teammate Lando Norris is almost as painful as last season. The young British driver already has 39 points, over three times the total of the Australian in just six races.
In Barcelona, Ricciardo did not make a better impression than usual by finishing in 12th position. A result that is even harder to accept when his teammate Lando Norris once again finishes in the points, in 8th position, while suffering from tonsillitis throughout the weekend and clearly being in a bad condition before the race.
When asked where his car’s performance was, here is the Australian’s response. « This is also the question I will ask myself in the debrief and over the next few hours. Yes, it wasn’t the case right from the start, and it wasn’t like I had understeer. I had a general lack of grip. »
A lack of performance that Ricciardo noticed on the four sets of tires he used during the race. « I thought at the beginning of the race it was really, really slow and I thought maybe the temperatures were too high or something like that with the tires. At the start, you obviously fight with cars and this kind of thing can happen, but yes, we made three stops so I had four sets of tires today and it was very, very slow on all of them. […] A really, really sad race. »
A disappointing pace from the Australian as McLaren was expected to arrive in Barcelona with its new developments. I mean, everyone arrived this weekend curious to see how they would perform. It’s one of those races where it was so slow – it almost feels wrong to say, but you hope that something was off, you hope that we’ll find something and say “oh, that’s why”, because it’s more concerning if that’s not the case.
« As I said, I wasn’t off by one or two tenths, it was more than a second at times. I don’t know if it’s the case, but I certainly saw cars overtaking me and quickly moving away. Yes… difficult. »
Daniel Ricciardo is one of the most eagerly anticipated drivers this season. After a failed season of adaptation last year, the Australian may already have no room for error if he wants to keep his chances of staying in Formula 1.
