Home favorite Daniel Ricciardo finished in sixth just behind his McLaren teammate Lando Norris at the 2022 Australian GP.
Ricciardo and McLaren didn’t get off to the best of starts in 2022. Firstly, Ricciardo missed a chunk of pre-season testing after getting a positive Covid result. He was cleared to compete right in time for the season opener in Bahrain.
At Sakhir, the McLaren cars lacked performance, and they were struggling at the bottom half of the grid. The Aussie finished P14 ahead of Norris in 15th.
They looked to be slightly better off at the Saudi Arabian GP, but power-unit issues for Ricciardo forced him out of the race. His British teammate on the other hand, earned a seventh place finish.
Coming into Ricciardo’s home race in Australia, McLaren fans were not bullish about their chances. The Surrey based team however, proved them wrong.
After a strong P4 and P7 finish in qualifying for Norris and Ricciardo respectively, they carried their good form into the race on Sunday.
Also read: Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz looks back on a horror outing at the 2022 Australian GP
Australia by far the best race of the season for McLaren, says Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren will be hoping that their promising outing in Melbourne will just be the start of their ascension for the 20 races to come. Ricciardo for one, is optimistic that they can keep making strides.
After returning to Australia for the first time since 2019, the Perth native revealed that he was satisfied with how he, Norris and the entire team performed over the weekend.
“I am satisfied enough I would say,” he said. “It is by far our best result of the season, personally and a team result. First part of the race I thought we were there with Mercedes and holding their DRS. But then as the race progressed that was probably our pace.”
“I think it was a bit of a photo finish,” Ricciardo continued. “I was told Lando was having some issues so the team said be sensible so I had to control myself a little bit but of course a 5th and a 6th is a fantastic result.”
“If you had said this in Bahrain I would have laughed sarcastically,” the former Red Bull driver added.
McLaren and the nine other F1 teams travel to Imola in two weeks time for the 2022 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Also read: Lewis Hamilton had to back off from fighting for P3 in the Australian GP
