McLaren mess is Daniel Ricciardo’s ‘line in the sand’ moment

Daniel Ricciardo was dudded by his team on the weekend, and it might the catalyst to release the shackles and finally reach top gear in 2021.

Daniel Ricciardo is still getting used to his McLaren seat.

McLaren making a mess of qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix may actually help Daniel Ricciardo settle into life at his new team, according to some F1 pundits.

The Aussie has out-qualified Lando Norris in three of the four races this season but Barcelona was the first time he’d beaten the Brit in a grand prix, crossing the line in sixth while Norris was two places back in eighth.

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It was a reassuring drive from Ricciardo, who has suffered some hiccups along the way as he adjusts to life at McLaren.

The worst of those came during qualifying at the Portuguese Grand Prix, where the distraught 31-year-old failed to make it past Q1 and started 16th on the grid for the main event.

There were more issues during qualifying in Spain, but that was more down to McLaren’s mistakes rather than anything Ricciardo did. The team left it too late to get the Honey Badger out of the garage and onto the track for Q3, meaning he was stuck behind Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and unable to make it back in time to complete his flying lap.

It resulted in Ricciardo qualifying seventh, but F1 commentator Tom Clarkson believes he will be breathing a sigh of relief as he heads into the next race at Monaco, because not all the blame will be laid at his feet.

“Nice for him in a way that McLaren made a bit of a mess in qualifying. They’ve completely held their hand up,” Clarkson told the F1 Nation podcast.

“He didn’t get his final run in Q3 because they timed it wrong and he just didn’t cross the line in time.

“Yes, he’s come in for a bit of criticism recently — ‘Why are you taking so long to get up to speed (at a new team)’ — but actually when the team drops the ball as well, he’s probably thinking, ‘Alright, we’ve all had our moments, let’s move on together’.

“This might be the line in the sand for him where he really comes good.

“And he loves Monaco doesn’t he, so it might be the place where he really pushes the distance on his teammate.”

Ricciardo is still getting a handle on how things work at McLaren.

Broadcaster Natalie Pinkham said while Ricciardo’s race results weren’t mind-blowing, his strong performances in qualifying — with the exception of Portugal — showed he wasn’t as far off as some people think.

“It feels like he’s got his mojo back. The thing is, I’m not sure his mojo ever really went,” Pinkham told F1 Nation. “He obviously had that massively disappointing qualifying last time out and then he needed to come back from that fast.

“When you look at the stats he’s still 3-1 out-qualified Lando, his first four races at a team.

“That’s really impressive when you consider how much you do need to adapt when you join a new team.”

Ricciardo has been open about his struggles in adapting to life behind the wheel of a McLaren that behaves differently to what he’s used to at Red Bull and Renault, revealing recently he was having problems with the brakes locking.

McLaren is third in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull and Mercedes, thanks largely to Norris’ strong start to the year, and knows it needs to make up ground during qualifying to stay in the top three.

“If you look at the whole season I think it is clear we need to try to finish higher up on Saturdays,” team boss Andreas Seidl said.

“Because in the end it makes your life on Sunday so much easier if you do your stints in free air without pressure behind, which we managed in some races already this year because of having a good start or a good first lap.

“And it brought us back to the position where we wanted to be already on Saturday in qualifying.

“It’s clear, that’s the goal. We want to finish higher up on Saturdays, in the end you want to finish on Saturday where potential of the car is.”