Ricciardo back without his regular physio: 'I'm going to do things differently'

With his departure from Formula 1, Daniel Ricciardo also lost his performance coach/physiotherapist and good friend Michael Italiano. Italiano did stay in F1 and joined Yuki Tsunoda. Ricciardo will therefore meet Italiano again at AlphaTauri.

But the performance coach is not going to be shared between the two. With the departure of Nyck de Vries, Ricciardo's return has also been confirmed. Ricciardo can no longer claim his old performance coach due to his 10-race sabbatical, as Italiano now sits with his teammate. Instead, Ricciardo will work with Pyry Salmela, De Vries' old coach.

Ricciardo will do things differently

At least, at the FIA press conference in Hungary, Ricciardo said he might want to do things a bit differently this year. "So I'm a lone wolf," Ricciardo begins jokingly. "So Pyry is going to just help out on race weekends just to kind of make the flow of the weekend go a little smoother." Outside race weekends, the collaboration is likely to be less intense.

Ricciardo continued, stressing that he wants to do things differently and also find his own rhythm: "I always say if I come back to the sport, I want to do things a little differently. I also wanted to find that self-motivation and make sure that I wanted it to come from me. You know what I mean? So the training, all of it, like the mindset. I wanted to get back into the sport because it's truly coming from me and what my heart desires. So I've been doing it myself this year and I've got the answers I wanted."