Seidl thinks there is ‘still a lot more to come’ from Ricciardo

Finley Crebolder
Daniel Ricciardo putting his overalls on. Austin October 2021

Daniel Ricciardo putting his overalls on before the United States Grand Prix. Austin October 2021

Andreas Seidl has been impressed with Daniel Ricciardo’s recent form, but think there’s much more to come from the Aussie going forward.

After a difficult first half to the season in which he was comfortably outperformed by team-mate Lando Norris, Ricciardo has started to turn things around since the summer break.

As well as winning the Italian Grand Prix, he finished inside the top five at Spa, Sochi and Austin and has out-scored the Brit by 19 points.

What’s more, while it was late chaos that caused Norris to finish behind him in Russia, he had the upper hand on him for the majority of the weekend in Italy and USA in particular.

Seidl doesn’t think the 32-year-old is even fully comfortable with his machinery yet and therefore feels that the best is yet to come.

“It’s just another confirmation that since the summer break he continuously improved and felt more comfortable in the car, which is good,” the McLaren team principal said as per speedcafe.com.

“I think, and he’s saying himself, I don’t think he’s fully comfortable yet with our car in any condition, or track layout, or situation.

“With him now getting more and more used to it, spending more and more time in our car, spending more and more time doing laps, I think it’s just natural that there is still a lot more to come from his side, which is obviously encouraging.

“But at the same time again, it was a great weekend from his side here in Austin, and a very strong drive to the end in the race where he showed why we wanted to get him on board and get him to McLaren.”

His victory in Monza was undoubtedly the highlight of his and McLaren’s season so far, with it being his first victory since 2018 and their first since 2012.

While he led that race from start to finish after getting ahead of Max Verstappen at the start though, Seidl thinks his drive last time out in Austin may have been even better.

 

“It was definitely a very strong weekend from Daniel,” he said.

“I think it’s fair to say it was, together with Monza, probably his strongest weekend with us – maybe even fair to say it was his best weekend with us so far on a track that has a lot of different corner types as well.

“I’m very happy with what he could pull off this weekend and was also a great performance from his side to keep Carlos behind the entire race and being under massive pressure.”

 

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