With Daniel Ricciardo beginning to look more at home at McLaren, team boss Andreas Seidl is excited to see how he can push the team forward.
The opening part of the 2021 Formula 1 season has been something of an introductory process for Ricciardo and his new team, with the seven-time grand prix winner taking time to get comfortable in the MCL35M.
At last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, a solid performance saw the Australian net a sixth place finish, having qualified seventh.
That performance came as Ricciardo and the team acknowledged he was now more comfortable in the car, leading Seidl to look forward to what his star recruit might deliver next.
“For sure one reason why I wanted to get Daniel onboard is because he obviously has a lot of experience and he knows what he needs, as a driver, from the car in order to go fast,” the German said.
“Therefore I’m really looking forward now, let’s say, to the race weekends where he feels fully comfortable with the car because then I think also we will see the real benefit.
“Not just in terms of speed, but also in terms of his experience helping us to keep developing the car further, together with Lando, who is obviously also very experienced now being the third year with us.”
McLaren sits third in the constructor’s championship after the opening four races of the season, though faces stiff competition for the spot from a resurgent Ferrari.
Alpine too has shown flashes of pace at the head of a tight midfield that also includes AlphaTauri, Aston Martin, and even Alfa Romeo on occasion.
Any points-paying result is therefore key to the outcome of the season, with tens of millions of dollars in prize money on offer.
“As a team boss, what I need is simply two drivers that are pushing each other, that are pushing the other cars on track,” Seidl reasoned.
“If you want to stay in this fight in the constructors’ championship you need to have always two cars being there with two drivers being always in position to score good points.
“It’s important that we still managed to score 12 points on the race weekend where Ferrari was quite strong,” he added of the Spanish Grand Prix result.
“We only lost [in Spain] I think six points in the constructors’ championship.”
Formula 1 heads to Monaco next for Round 5 on May 20-23.
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