Though his tenure at the team has been short, Daniel Ricciardo has left a marked impression on those at Scuderia AlphaTauri with the quality of his feedback.
Ricciardo was parachuted into the drive alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the Faenza-based operation after just 10 races.
That saw him in action at the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix before injuring his left hand in a crash during Free Practice 2 for the Dutch GP.
Sidelined since, the Australian attended the Singapore Grand Prix where he participated in engineering debriefs alongside Tsunoda and Liam Lawson.
“Pretty much straight away you could feel the quality of the feedback, not only the feedback on the handling of the car,” explained Jonathan Eddolls, head of trackside engineering for Scuderia AlphaTauri, said of Ricciardo’s early contribution.
“Obviously, he’s got a wealth of experience and he’s driven many different cars and experienced many different ends of the performance spectrum.
“Having that feedback on our car was extremely valuable for us.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri has typically been used to develop talent prior to promotion to the Red Bull senior team – a process Ricciardo himself once benefitted from.
As a result, it has lacked experience, save comparatively rare occasions when drivers had returned to the fold, such as Pierre Gasly or Daniil Kvyat.
However, in both instances, neither had the wealth of experience Ricciardo now enjoys.
Having raced with HRT, Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing, Renault, and McLaren, the eight-time grand prix winner therefore boasts not only more than a decade of experience but almost half of that spent outside the auspices of the Red Bull programme.
“I think the other things that were impressive, and reminders of what experience can bring, were: how he could understand the race; the feedback that he could give live; how he thought the tyres were behaving – was it a one-stop or a two-stop; or if there was a Safety Car, could he reheat these tyres? Or would we need to fit a fresh set,” Eddolls said.
“A lot of the time, we’re making those decisions from the pit wall based on data.
“When it’s not clear cut, having someone with that experience can really, really make a difference.”
Formula 1 returns this weekend with the Qatar Grand Prix, an event flagged for Ricciardo’s potential racing return, though that has not been confirmed by Scuderia AlphaTauri.
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