{"id":51025,"date":"2021-03-29T00:02:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T00:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=51025"},"modified":"2021-03-29T01:59:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T01:59:51","slug":"new-teammates-brutal-ricciardo-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=51025","title":{"rendered":"New teammate's brutal Ricciardo reality check"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Daniel Ricciardo was under any illusions about the pace of his new teammate at McLaren, Lando Norris set him straight at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.<\/a><\/p>\n

A fine drive from Norris earned him fourth place, albeit 46 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton's winning Mercedes, while Ricciardo was seventh, 20 seconds behind his teammate.<\/p>\n

That's an eternity in Formula One and a result Ricciardo will be keen to reverse at Imola next month.<\/p>\n

Every driver knows their biggest opponent is their teammate, a statement that's especially true at the beginning of the season between two equally-matched drivers as they seek to get the upper hand.<\/p>\n

Norris is in just his third season of F1 and has only a single podium to his name, yet has already shown enough to suggest he's a race winner in the right car.<\/p>\n

\"Lando<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old was the F3 champion in 2017 and the F2 runner-up the following year, so the size of the task facing Ricciardo is considerable, although the Australian's speed and experience is expected to give him a slight edge over the season.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo had the advantage in qualifying in Bahrain, although by the barest of margins; just under half-a-tenth of a second, and that after Norris had showed Ricciardo the way during practice.<\/a><\/p>\n

That advantage disappeared on the opening lap, with Norris emerging as the lead McLaren, a situation that remained the case for the entire race.<\/p>\n

And while Ricciardo remained in touch with his teammate through the first stint, after the opening round of pitstops he found himself dropping slowly but steadily behind.<\/p>\n

"The race itself I struggled with pace," Ricciardo said.<\/p>\n

"I wouldn't say it was a strong race by any means but plenty to work on and learn from.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

"Definitely not discouraged, just still definitely some work to do."<\/p>\n

The Australian admits he's still coming to grips with the McLaren and adjusting his driving style from the Renault he drove last year.<\/p>\n

"As the race went on I felt like I was just falling back and back and just struggled to push on the tyre and keep (tyre temperature). I felt like I'll just cook it," he said.<\/p>\n

"I'm sure there's still some finessing that I can do with the car and just learn probably what sweet spot I'm after in the set-up.<\/p>\n

"I feel like there's for sure still things to learn. But I'm certainly much closer to where I need to be. It's just going to take time … but Imola's next. I like that place and we'll go fast."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Daniel Ricciardo was under any illusions about the pace of his new teammate at McLaren, Lando Norris set him straight at the season-opening Bahrain […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51027,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51025\/revisions\/51027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}