Daniel Ricciardo needs Sunday’s final evening of Bahrain pre-season testing because he is missing more representative running and is not “truly at one” with McLaren’s Formula 1 car.
McLaren, which finished third in last year’s constructors’ championship, has had a trouble-free test so far and hit its targets with a varied programme so far with the new Mercedes-powered MCL35M.
Ricciardo has been quickest in each of his two half-day sessions, although the team’s new signing has driven first on both days so been bumped down the order when others have done more performance-based runs later on.
Bahrain will host the season opener in two weeks’ time with its usual evening start time, which makes running in the warmer daytime a different experience.
Ricciardo will finally get an evening run on the final day of the test and believes it is the final thing he needs to validate how comfortable he is with the car and how competitive it feels.
“It’s all gone pretty smooth,” he said of the test. “I don’t know what could have gone better yet. Faster lap times! But generally I think it’s been pretty good.
“We’ve done most runs that we planned. I do the [final] evening session, and I think that will just complete the picture.
“That’s when we race here and qualify so it will give me probably a better understanding of where the limit of the car is in more optimum conditions.”
A sign of the strength of McLaren’s has been its lack of issues, with no obvious mishaps for either Ricciardo or Lando Norris and no reliability problems either.
Ricciardo admitted the car is “certainly handling itself pretty well at the moment” but was keen to stress that without that final evening run he could not say for certain how good it is.
“Not to dodge the question but I need to get one of these evening sessions under my belt,” he said.
“Because even though we’ve been quick on the timesheets, in the day sessions the track is 40 degrees, it’s not that representative of what I’m used to around here so the car is sliding and moving around.
“It doesn’t feel electrifying but relative to the track we’re obviously doing OK.
“I think [on Sunday evening] I’ll probably have a better understanding of really how well balanced it is.
“But I think both days, with a 180-degree wind direction change, we’ve been solid so there’s certainly more positives than not at the moment.”
Ricciardo said he is ready “enough” for his first race with the team but admitted a driver is probably “never” fully ready at the start of a new season.
McLaren is his third team in four years and pairs him with a Mercedes engine for the first time, and Ricciardo said he is not taking the extent of his learning curve “lightly”.
When Ricciardo left Red Bull to join Renault he spent the early part of the season adjusting to the brakes, and he said that is the same area that has a notable difference at McLaren too.
“You never want to admit that you’re driving to the limit yet or anything,” Ricciardo said. “I think the reality is it does take a little time to execute at 100%.
“I think I’m certainly getting close, but am I truly at one with the car yet? Not yet.
“But I expect a fair bit out of myself in the evening session. I expect to start getting closer to that.
“From like a race weekend [perspective], dialling into strategic stuff with the team and going through a race simulation, I’m pretty comfortable.
“I think it’s really just me getting comfortable within myself and the car. It naturally takes a bit of time, but I don’t really want to give myself the time.”
