Daniel Ricciardo is looking forward to what he believes will be a stronger 2022 season, as he enters his second consecutive year with the McLaren team. Having swapped from Renault to McLaren at the end of 2020, Ricciardo struggled for consistency and speed alongside Lando Norris. But, with F1 entering a completely new era with revolutionary technical rules resetting the formbook, Ricciardo reckons the changes, together with a year's experience at McLaren, will bring about a strong season. "[It's the] second year; all the hard work of getting into a new team, learning the team, getting them to understand you... that takes time," Ricciardo told select members of the media, including RacingNews365.com , at the launch of McLaren's MCL36 on Friday evening. "I think now, into year two, I know everyone I'm going to be working with. They know me, they know what I like in a car. So it's basically straight to business and there's less of the discovery process. "I think that fills me with confidence as well, that I've got a team around me now that know and trust me, and it's just fully into the racing stuff, and not really any other noise."
Ricciardo hopeful of a more "comfortable" McLaren car
With McLaren launching their MCL36, Ricciardo explained that he's excited to be entering a season with a car that has "a little Daniel in it", referring to his own input into the development of the new machine. "There's definitely some Daniel but I think, in the end, some Lando and Daniel, because, last year, Lando was better equipped with the car, was more comfortable most of the time," the Australian driver explained. "But, there were still things in it that, when I would raise [them] he would also be like, 'Yeah, actually, I would like to do that too'. The development is, for sure, in both of our favour, or both of our directions." But, until the car has hit the track and is driven in anger, Ricciardo said it's still just a guessing game on his part. "For now, we've obviously just done a little bit of sim work," he commented. "But, until we hit the track, because the cars have been built from scratch, there's no correlations yet. So we hope that we've addressed some of these issues and built some strengths in the car but, until we hit the track, we don't really know what we're going to get. "So I definitely hope that it's a car I'm comfortable with and can work a little more to my strengths. Time will tell, but they definitely took a lot on board from last year and did what they could with the information provided."
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