Daniel Ricciardo believes he is “quickly ticking a lot of boxes” in his return to F1 despite results of late not having the same lustre as he enjoyed in Mexico.
Ricciardo finished 14th in Las Vegas last weekend after struggling for grip in his Scuderia AlphaTauri.
That came after a difficult Sao Paulo Grand Prix where he was clouted at the opening corner, leaving him a lap down shortly after the race start.
But he argues while the headline performances haven’t been there, both he and the team have made progress.
“Yeah pole position – still missing those couple of tenths,” he joked when asked what he was still chasing upon his return.
“Look, I’ve been I’ve been really happy with the short amount of time we’ve had.
“It hasn’t always shown on paper but even [Sao Paulo], as painful as it was starting a race essentially a lap down, I think we still showed really good signs of speed and understanding of the car, and progress, and I’m feeling more and more comfortable.
“So I’m quickly ticking a lot of boxes I wanted, and really now [the goal is] to continue that feeling and continue just finding a little bit more out of set-up, because I think we found quite a bit since Mexico.
“If we could maybe still find another kind of tenth or two, that would be cool.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri had a difficult start to the 2023 season and found itself rooted to the foot of the constructors’ championship for much of the year.
The turning point came in Mexico when Ricciardo, in his second race back from injury, qualified on the second row ahead of recording the team’s best result of the year in seventh in the race itself.
It was a significant result as it not only lifted Scuderia AlphaTauri off the foot of the constructors’ championship, an achievement potentially worth millions for the team, but it also signified a new level of performance from the team.
A large upgrade package was introduced in the United States, though with Ricciardo in his first race back from injury and a Sprint format weekend, it was not fully exploited.
A week later, and with more time to fine-tune set-up, both Ricciardo and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda displayed an uptick in performance.
That has not been universal and weaknesses remain, as displayed in Las Vegas, but it marked an encouraging change in direction for the Faenza team.
“Now that we have a sniff of seventh in constructors, [my focus is to] try to do everything I can to help contribute,” Ricciardo said of his intent as F1 heads to its season finale in Abu Dhabi.
“If we could get seventh, I think the team would be… No one really thought that was going to happen pre-Austin, so that would feel like a bit of a victory for us.”
It is a long shot.
Scuderia AlphaTauri is seven points behind Williams, with its best points haul of 2023 the six points it scored in Mexico City.
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