‘Special’ driving style needed for McLaren F1 car “not natural” for Ricciardo

Ricciardo has endured a tough start to life at McLaren since completing his winter switch and has finished behind teammate Lando Norris in four of the five races so far this season.

The Australian’s struggles continued across the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, which Ricciardo described as a “disaster” after he could only finish 12th, while Norris went on to claim his second podium of the year in third place.

McLaren team principal Seidl believes Ricciardo’s progress in getting fully up to speed has been hampered by the challenge of adapting to the specific characteristics of the MCL35M.

“I think if you look back, since the beginning of the season, we have made good steps forward with him,” said Seidl.

“In order to drive our car fast at the moment, you need a special driving style which is not natural for Daniel. That's why it's not so easy for him to get the laps in and to extract the performance.

“We simply have to keep working together now as one team, stay calm, keep analysing, keep learning and do two things, which is him further adapting to our car.

“Because he sees that the potential is there, which is I think the positive thing for him to see that, and that Lando can pull it off.

“And at the same time, we will look at the team side as well to see what we can do in order to help him on the car side, to get back his natural feeling which you need to go fast.”

Ricciardo was left baffled after struggling to 12th in qualifying and said he “refuses to believe” his deficit to teammate Norris, who produced a lap good enough for fifth on the grid.

Speaking after the race, the seven-time grand prix winner admitted he is still lacking the confidence to replicate what Norris is able to do in the car.

“There's differences on the data and this is why Lando's quicker in that corner and I see that, but I'm not convinced I'm able to do that,” he explained.

“But we'll see. Maybe it's still a bit of me trying to get used to the car, but I'm sure they'll check everything as well. When it's that far off, it's a bit tough.”

But Ricciardo stressed he wants to avoid over-analysing his performance across the weekend and says he needs a few days to come to terms with what happened.

“I’m obviously going to keep working at it,” he added.

But I feel this weekend we’ve kind of been so far off and so much on the back foot that part of me also just wants to switch off for a few days. Otherwise it’s like paralysis over analysis.

“I’ve been there before and I don’t want to go back to that.”