Well, it looks like the high octane pace of the 2022 season has begun. McLaren has shown amazing consistency in the first 2 days of the preseason test in Barcelona. The British team led 2 of the 4 sessions till now and have completed over 100 laps on each day. McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo mentioned that despite McLaren’s good pace, he believes Mercedes and Red Bull are yet to show their true hand.

The Aussie driver topped the first session on day 2 and was in the top 3 in terms of timings at the end of the day. He also completed over 120 laps throughout the day without any major issues.

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Daniel Ricciardo believes his rivals have an ace up their sleeve

As reported by GPBlog, the McLaren driver mentioned that timings can be deceiving in the preseason testing. There is little to no data available for teams to get a complete understanding of the rivals’ plans for the sessions. Daniel mentioned that according to him, Red Bull and Mercedes are hiding their true potential from the other teams.

“I think I speak for all the drivers, testing you just really don’t know what everyone is doing. I don’t look at the times much, but of course, it is nice to be more at the top than at the bottom.

In any case, Red Bull and Mercedes haven’t shown anything yet, so we’ll see what happens when that opens more,” said Ricciardo.

”For now, the focus is mainly on ourselves. We have driven a lot of laps, the reliability is good and I feel comfortable in the car. I know our strengths and now try to work on the weaknesses with the setup,” said the McLaren driver.

It is truly impossible to know the real performances of any team in the testing phase. There is a possibility that Mercedes and Red Bull are indeed hiding their true pace from their rivals.

But despite all that, Ricciardo looked fast and settled in the new 2022 MCL 36 after completing 126 laps. Let us see if it is indeed McLaren and Ferrari leading the pack going into the first race of the season.

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