{"id":62057,"date":"2021-04-23T12:43:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T12:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=62057"},"modified":"2021-04-23T16:59:12","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T16:59:12","slug":"flat-ricciardo-responds-to-rocky-season-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=62057","title":{"rendered":"Flat Ricciardo responds to rocky season start"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dejected Daniel Ricciardo<\/a> has spoken out about his lacklustre start to life at McLaren, resigning to "defeat" and willing himself to "see what I can keep improving".<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old has been comprehensively outraced by 21-year-old McLaren teammate Lando Norris early in the season<\/a>, who's only in his third Formula 1 campaign.<\/p>\n

Norris finished fourth in the season-opener in Bahrain and clinched a podium position in Italy this week, finishing third behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n

But Ricciardo only managed to finish seventh in Bahrain, crossing the line 20 seconds behind Norris, and sixth at Imola, 28 seconds behind his teammate.<\/p>\n

"Sixth. The result looks all right on paper but I wasn't fast," Ricciardo said.<\/p>\n

"A bit like most of the weekend but obviously Lando got a podium and had stronger pace for at least the majority of the race.<\/p>\n

"So I think on one side that's really positive, but obviously on my side I need to figure out not what's going wrong but just what I can do better.<\/p>\n

"I don't want to be too hard on myself but I'm going to accept defeat for the moment and just work and see what I can keep improving."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ricciardo can at least be buoyed by the fact his switch from Renault to McLaren has secured him a better car.<\/p>\n

This season's Renault drivers, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso, have had terrible starts to the championship.<\/p>\n

Ocon salvaged a 13th-placed finish in Bahrain and ninth-placed finish in Imola, while Alonso had a non-classified finish in the season-opener and picked up 10th in the Italian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Alonso retired on lap 32 of the Bahrain Grand Prix due to a sandwich wrapper getting caught in his brake duct.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo is satisfied with his decision to sign a three-year deal with McLaren.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

"If personally I'm not getting everything out of it yet, the thing that gives me confidence is obviously looking at the potential of the car. It's there and it's pretty good," Ricciardo said.<\/p>\n

"It can do more than I think it can as far as just carrying more speed through the corners and the car is going to stick. So there's a little bit of trust in the car.<\/p>\n

"But I don't think it's like, just turn in and close your eyes and it's going to stick. A lot of it is technique as well.<\/p>\n

"And this, I try not to say it as excuses from the past, but there is probably just still some old habits that I need to flush out a little bit and things that maybe don't work as well for this car."<\/p>\n

The drivers are now set to touch down at the Algarve International Circuit for the Portugal Grand Prix on May 2 (AEST).<\/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><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A dejected Daniel Ricciardo has spoken out about his lacklustre start to life at McLaren, resigning to "defeat" and willing himself to "see what I […]<\/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\/62057"}],"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=62057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62059,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62057\/revisions\/62059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}