Daniel Ricciardo Hints at Long Term McLaren F1 Tenure, Admits to Pressure to Switching Teams

Daniel Ricciardo only spent two years at Renault before making his move to McLaren. The Australian has moved around the paddock quite often, hoping to find a team that can help him achieve his dream of winning a world title.

In 2019, Ricciardo moved from Red Bull to the French team as he thought it was his best shot at the championship. However, it didn’t go as planned, and now, in 2021, he thinks that McLaren will be his opportunity to grab the title.

In his first race for the Woking-based outfit, Ricciardo came home seventh even though he had sustained damages that cost him downforce. Meanwhile, his British teammate, Lando Norris, crossed the line in fourth place.

Daniel Ricciardo doesn’t want the pressure of switching teams

In a recent interview, talking about his ambition, Ricciardo said, “I have obviously done a bit of moving around in the last few years. It’s not something I want to continue to do or plan on doing. It’s stressful, it’s actually hard work.”

“So I do really feel like that the team has already laid out a very nice foundation, and if I can build on what I have already seen what they have got. And personally achieve my goals here I think we fit for the world title, hopefully as soon as next year,” Ricciardo concluded.

The Australian feels there is still work to do and hopes to extract the most out of the car

During the post-race interview after the Bahrain Grand Prix, he said, “I would say if I [take] the weekend as a whole, I’m pretty happy.

“But if I just focus on the race itself, I struggled quite a bit in the race actually. I couldn’t really extract the pace form the car and when I did.

“I could do it for one or two laps and then it would quickly drop off again with the tyres and the balance, so I just didn’t feel like I had a good race performance, or race package,” he continued.

“Obviously it’s still new to me, so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of homework for me to do personally to obviously keep getting better. I made plenty of notes through the race of what I [was feeling in] the car and where that was holding me back, so I’ll give feedback, I’m sure they’ll give feedback to me and we’ll come to Imola in better shape.

“But I think if seventh is a poor race, we’re looking alright!” the Australian concluded.

How did you think the Daniel did in his first race for McLaren? Let us know in the comments below.

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