Daniel Ricciardo already benefiting from McLaren’s bold calls

Lewis Hamilton has joined the chorus of praise for McLaren after a revealing three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain showed positive signs for Daniel Ricciardo’s new team.

The Aussie’s F1 teammate Lando Norris is also optimistic about McLaren’s fortunes for 2021 after some strong performances following what the team described as “baby steps” before the first race later this month.

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Ricciardo was fastest in the opening sessions on the first two days of testing, and while McLaren slid down the timesheets overall, there’s plenty to be confident about.

Former F1 driver Romain Grosjean and tyre manufacturer Pirelli were among those to laud McLaren’s early showing, while seven-time world champion Hamilton said “it’s great to see McLaren looking strong”.

Having finished third in the constructors’ championship last year, behind Red Bull and Mercedes, McLaren will be hoping the addition of Ricciardo can take it to another level as he partners good friend Norris.

“It’s difficult to know what everyone’s doing but we can be confident, we have a decent car,” Norris said. “We have things to work on for sure, not everything’s perfect, but I’m happy and excited to get started.

“I think it’s gone well. I want to say we’re maybe a little more confident than we were last year.

“In terms of starting off with a good step and on the right foot, I think we’ve managed to do that and we have some good things to work on when we come back in two weeks.”

Ricciardo is settling into life with his new team.Source:Getty Images

McLaren has changed power unit suppliers this season, going from Renault to Mercedes — one of several tweaks the team has tried to adapt to during the pre-season hit-out in the desert.

Writing for Motorsport.com, Adam Cooper said it was brave of McLaren to have its new car ready so early — new engine and all — so it could analyse three clean days in Bahrain, in stark contrast to Mercedes, who encountered some technical issues after waiting to debut their new four-wheeler on the track at the latest possible stage.

“Rather than use the extra workload inherent in the engine change as a reason to be among the last to run, McLaren took the opposite approach, ensuring that the car was ready early so that it had plenty of time to analyse data and sort through everything before the first proper test in Bahrain,” Cooper wrote.

“The fact that the three days appeared to run smoothly suggested that the strategy had paid dividends.

“That early test debut has clearly paid dividends so far, and it puts the team in a strong position going into the first race.”

McLaren technical director James Key was happy with the amount of information garnered from analysing the team’s output in Bahrain, but was playing down expectations, keen to point out how much work still needs to be done.

“It was a little bit baby steps to get us to this week and hope that we could be reliable, but fingers crossed, so far it’s been quite reasonable,” Key said.

“It is very difficult to tell (where everyone stands in the pecking order). For us it’s really been a case of looking at ourselves, making sure that we were comfortable with the steps that we were making during the test, ticking those boxes … making sure the reliability of the engine installation was critical for us and Mercedes and so on.

“It hasn’t been a bad test, but exactly where everyone is, is of course very difficult to say.”

Can McLaren go better than its P3 last year?Source:AFP

McLaren’s novel solution to combat aero regulations implemented this season to trim the downforce off cars also received a tick of approval.

F1 has enforced a reduction in the height of diffuser strakes (little stalactites attached to the part) by 50mm, but McLaren exploited a loophole in the rules to increase the size of their strakes at the rear of the car by extending the floor transition in an area not impacted by the regulation changes.

“It’s a normal design idea. I think we are maybe a bit surprised that we are maybe the only team with that,” Key said.

“I think it’s always nice for a team to come out with an idea which is unique, you know? And credit fully goes to our aero department and the guys in the rear aero group for realising that there was an opportunity there to use the new regulations in such a way, so full credit to them.

“It’s just one feature of many in an area which changed for this year.”

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