Ricciardo's situation at McLaren is 'mentally difficult'

After two seasons at Renault,Daniel Ricciardo joined McLaren this year to replace Carlos Sainz. Together with Lando Norris the team is doing quite well, but it is clear that the Australian is struggling to find his feet in the car. Of the seven races Norris has been quicker six times, starting most of the time ahead of him (qualifying 5-2 for Norris). This has an impact mentally and former F1 driver and the 2016 champion, Nico Rosberg, will be hoping Ricciardo can find his way.

Unusual situation

In France Ricciardo crossed the finish line in sixth place, eleven seconds behind Norris who finished in fifth place. A fine performance for McLaren who were clearly the 'best-of-the-rest' with only Mercedes and Red Bull ahead of them. Still, Nico Rosberg cannot ignore the fact that Ricciardo is in an unusual situation, as he says at Sky Sports.

"Daniel has been struggling a lot. In France he was a bit closer but he’s still not at his best yet, still having to get used to the car. It’s a very unusual situation for Daniel because he’s been really dominant in his team in all the last years, but he’s just struggling to get to grips with the car."

Mentally a lot of impact

That trouble spot is causing him to be a little behind Norris, but what has a much greater impact mentally is when the situation is worse than it seems. Rosberg continued: "It’s so horrible when sometimes you just don’t feel the car under you in the way you like, so you just don’t have the confidence."

"Even worse, Daniel is out there thinking ‘wow, that was an awesome lap’, like in Monaco, and then looks at the lap time and is eight tenths away from Lando. That’s when it gets really difficult for you mentally as a driver and really not nice. I hope Daniel can find his feet." At least in France things went better already, where the driver showed some nice actions anyway. So in that respect he seems to be getting the hang of the car.