“Not the easiest race I’ve ever done physically”– Daniel Ricciardo shares his first race experience after suffering from COVID-19

Tanish Chachra | 22/03/2022
"Not the easiest race I've ever done physically"– Daniel Ricciardo shares his first race experience after suffering from COVID-19

Daniel Ricciardo talks about the ordeals he faced during the Bahrain Grand Prix race as he just got recovered from COVID-19.

During the Bahrain pre-season testing, Daniel Ricciardo was not available for three days due to sickness. After several rounds of testing, it was discovered that the Australian is suffering from COVID-19.

Though, he managed to make it back for McLaren in time. He appeared in the first race of the season with the Woking-based team even though he obtained a deplorable result.

But much could be pointed at COVID-19 as one of the causes for his poor results. Ricciardo himself confessed that racing just after recovering from COVID-19 was a challenge itself.

“I’d love to lie and say I feel awesome,” he told the media. “But yeah, I certainly felt it. Even if I just take laying in bed – forget COVID and just say I laid in bed for five days – that in itself was always going to make the weekend challenging and then, in addition, the feelings of COVID.”

“[It was] not the easiest race I’ve ever done physically, but I still felt like I was able to compete at a high enough level. [I’m] happy to get the race distance done and hopefully it gets easier from here.”

Also read: Lando Norris is expecting pain from McLaren in the coming races

Daniel Ricciardo claims without COVID-19 he would have still struggled

When asked whether COVID-19 was a cause for poor performance, Ricciardo didn’t prefer to pin the blame on it. Instead, he said that the results wouldn’t have been much different without his illness. He points out his teammate Lando Norris as a reference for it.

“I have to take Lando [Norris] as a reference,” he said of his teammate. “Obviously, he showed he’s a very good reference from last year, and I looked at his lap in Q2 yesterday and it was only good enough for 13th.”

“But the lap looked pretty good. I think, at least at this track, that was a true indication of our pace. If I did testing and this and that, I’d love to say maybe I could have found more time.”

“But I think he did a decent lap yesterday, so there’s not half a second sitting in the car now,” he added. McLaren, so far, seems to be in deep waters.

The Woking-based team is nowhere near to its former rival Ferrari in competition. Moreover, it also got overpowered by the teams which last year finished below them.

Also read: Lando Norris calls out aggressive race craft of Max Verstappen

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
Daniel Ricciardo McLaren

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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