With half the season now underway, it is painfully clear that Daniel Ricciardo has yet to fully master the 2021 McLaren car. However, according to strategy director Andrea Stella, this is not entirely the fault of the Australian driver, as the McLaren MCL35M requires a rather specific approach for a driver to be able to maximalise its potential.
"The car has some characteristics that make it very special to drive, which we see with the experience Daniel is going through because he came from the opposite end in terms of how you would like to drive a Formula 1 car", Stella said referring to Ricciardo's years at Renault, talking to The Race.
Special adaptations
"Our car requires some special adaptation," the executive continued. "It’s no secret that our car is good in high-speed corners and may not be the best car when you have to roll speed in mid-corner."
Stella concludes as follows: "“We are trying to adjust some of the characteristics to make it a little bit more manageable to drive. At the same time, the important thing to deliver is aerodynamic efficiency, even if we couldn’t necessarily improve in terms of balance and [driver] exploitation of the car."