This is the secret power of Daniel Ricciardo

The always good-humored Daniel Ricciardo has left the Renault F1 team and has joined McLaren. Pat Fry, the technical boss at Alpine takes a laudatory goodbye. Indeed, the Australian's hidden strength is going to be missed at the team.

Big loss for Renault, huge win for McLaren

Not only did Ricciardo's speed strike a chord with Fry, but also his character and enthusiasm. The Australian's attitude is unique and is a great advantage for the team he drives for. "I think Daniel's outstanding," Fry says to Motorsport.com.

"He's clearly very quick and very sensible. But I think also, when you actually look at the way he motivates a team and that side of it, which often gets forgotten, he is great. Even when you've had a session that's not as good as you would have hoped or whatever, he's still big enough to see the benefits of what we've learned in that and that we will do 'better tomorrow' type of thing.

"That is actually a good way of pulling the crew and the team together really. So I think [he's] pretty outstanding and pretty exceptional really."