(Motorsports news) Last winter, Ricciardo’s three-year McLaren contract was terminated one year early because the Australian had trouble adjusting to the team’s Formula One vehicles. Despite gaining a surprise victory at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, Ricciardo consistently trailed teammate Lando Norris in the tricky McLaren over his two seasons in Woking.

Before being loaned to sister team AlphaTauri ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix as an early replacement for Nyck de Vries, Ricciardo was first snatched up by Red Bull as a third driver during his hiatus. While he still needs to fully acclimate to the AT04, Ricciardo pleased on his initial excursions with it and promised never to go through the same degree of detail that he did at McLaren.

According to team manager Christian Horner, Ricciardo’s efforts to alter his driving style at McLaren rendered him “unrecognisable” upon his return to the Red Bull simulator. He had to regain his confidence in following runs and a convincing Silverstone tyre test. I don’t want to dive into that detail ever again,” Ricciardo said in response to the question of whether he had to work as hard in the AlphaTauri to catch up as he did at McLaren.

“I believe that even during my first year at McLaren, I discovered that we were definitely getting into too much during the summer vacation. We had to slightly alter our strategy. “I felt like I’ve realized that wasn’t working for me, even if it was in everyone’s best interests to try to make it work. In retrospect, we still likely overdid things, but hey, maybe that works for another driver.

When he joined the Faenza team again, Ricciardo claimed he was able to exploit his natural driving style and discovered the AlphaTauri to be better suited to him, despite the vehicle’s lack of aerodynamic load in comparison to most of its rivals. “I sensed it a little more. In response to a question on how the AlphaTauri AT04 compares to his previous McLaren.

Ricciardo said”On lap one I already felt like I was receiving kind of the feedback that maybe I would anticipate or enjoy, so that was key “Maybe I’ll discover things along the way that I just have to work on because they don’t exactly match how I feel, so I anticipate some hurdles along the way. “But my initial reaction was that it did make me feel a little bit more at home. That was crucial because I wanted to experience something similar.

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