When Daniel Ricciardo was searching for answers for his disappointing form in Formula 1 last season he didn’t expect to learn for the first time what makes him a good driver.
Ricciardo’s difficulty in adapting to the particularities of McLaren’s F1 car is now well-established. As is the way Ricciardo had to try to recalibrate his driving style to try to suit the MCL35M better – that back-to-school method of being talked through quite basic driving techniques that must have been so painful at times for a winner of eight grands prix.
The biggest benefit from that process, though, may not be what Ricciardo learned about his weakness, it’s what he learned about his strengths. Because Ricciardo has discovered that he really didn’t know that much about them.
“There’s a lot I can use from that moving forward,” he says when asked by The Race about the process of having to deconstruct his driving style in 2021 and the benefits of that.
“Simply, it kind of occurred to me that I didn’t really know my strengths. I knew that I could be very fast – but I thought maybe because I have got bigger balls in the high-speed corners and I just care less! I don’t know.
“But going through it, I realised ‘OK, this is what actually made me fast in years past, this is actually what gives me confidence in the car, and this is actually where I’m better than others, in this part’.
“That was at times when I couldn’t do it in the car, so that’s kind of how I discovered that. There was a process that I was trying to get the car to do that: ‘This is what got me to the dance, let me do this and I’ll do well’.
“But then the reality of things not being an overnight fix, I realised I need to work on myself and adapt my style and try to get it going.
“I definitely learned my strengths. I think my weaknesses became more apparent! But really the weird one was figuring out why I was quick, or why I’d been quick.
“It wasn’t so much the fast corners actually!”
While it would be dangerous to try to simplify Ricciardo’s 2021 cause to a single issue, it did often come back to how he attacks a braking zone and tries to rotate the car.
Despite being famously adept at late-braking passes, Ricciardo’s preferred style in normal conditions is to brake slightly earlier, with less pressure, and roll the speed into the corner.
That requires a positive front end to get the car rotated. At medium and low speed, the McLaren was ill-suited to this technique.
Team-mate Lando Norris was much more effective with a later, harder brake that facilitated a sharper rotation and allowed him to get on the power again quicker.
Ricciardo could not quite drill that technique into himself, even though he got better at it through the season. But the reason he couldn’t is probably twinned with the reason he didn’t know what his strengths were as a driver: this is something baked into him from an early age, the kind of technique that comes subconsciously to top-level athletes.
It’s clear Ricciardo, a more ‘in the moment’ kind of person and driver even by these standards, never really gave it that much thought.
Now he’s effectively been forced into conducting that deeper self-analysis, Ricciardo seems to have embraced the benefits. It’s interesting to consider if this might have made him a more well-rounded driver – blending a slightly more analytical edge with his natural feel. That could be the sort of thing that helps bridge the gap to the elite drivers on the grid that Ricciardo threatened to join at his peak.
Ricciardo was not lazy before. But if he is now a bit more data-driven, or a bit more aware of what that data means for him specifically, that can only help. Perhaps it’s already feeding into what he admits is quite a bit of thought into what the new generation of 2022 cars will require, for example.
And it will surely come in handy when Ricciardo gets down to business across six days of running in Spain and Bahrain, having not really had enough time last year to fully dig into the nuances of the McLaren before the season began.
“I’m trying to start getting an idea of what this car’s going to like and what do I need to start thinking of to get it in that place, where I’m putting the car in a position in the corner where the car is optimal,” he says. “And constantly trying to figure out ways to drive the car that the car likes doing.
“With the sim as well, you can make mistakes, and press the reset button and go again. So that’s been good to experiment.
“But there’s also part of me which is like, I want to do enough, but I don’t want to do too much because until we get to the track, it could be different. And as good as the sims are, they are not perfect 10 times out of 10.
“I’m using that as a device to try to experiment a little bit for now, but it’s more I just want to get on track and then start playing around.
“Having six days instead of three is big as well. Last year, as experienced as I am in this sport, it definitely hurt me a bit having a day and a half in the car. Having three full days should be a night and day difference.”
There are some other important factors to consider as well. First is that Ricciardo was banging the drum “pretty loudly” about what he wanted from the 2022 MCL36.
He was always wary of throwing his weight around and demanding the team bend to his will but at the same time, being one of the most experienced drivers on the grid and having driven for Red Bull for so many years, he was always keen to make sure his voice was heard. He wants to be a leader.
Ricciardo amplified his voice when he was struggling last year, to emphasise what he felt he needed. And he felt emboldened to do that as Norris was giving similar feedback even though he was coping with the car’s limitations better.
Of course, the dramatic change in technical regulations for this year means the pre-existing car concepts are a thing of the past anyway.
“The positive was that Lando was also in agreement and he would have like to have these attributes as well in the car, and what we could do with it,” says Ricciardo.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on that for this year’s car, but it’s also a whole new car so we don’t know if that is also the best way to drive this car.
“I was beating the drum but the team also acknowledged that ‘this is a strength of Daniel’s, he’s proven to be very fast, so we also want to give him this so we can also get the most out of Daniel’.”
So, there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic that it’s a problem that won’t materialise in the same way.
“With change definitely comes some optimism, where it should get me to lean on my strengths more or whatever,” Ricciardo says.
“I’ve done a few sessions in the sim, and so far it’s been pretty good. I’m pretty happy with where I’m at with the car. But how that correlates on track, we have to see.
“I am excited for the new cars, and it’s going to be different. A lot of the comparisons are to the F2 car, which I haven’t driven before.
“There’s going to be a few unknowns for me as well. But I am prepared and excited. Hopefully you can see me driving free as a bird in 2022.”
If not, the Ricciardo entering this season should be better equipped to deal with that than the one who had such an eye-opening 2021.
