‘Primal’ feeling fuelled Ricciardo to breakthrough Monza F1 win

The Australian claimed a surprise first victory for McLaren by heading teammate Lando Norris to a 1-2 finish at Monza last weekend, a result which marked McLaren’s first win since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo and Norris returned to McLaren’s woking headquarters this week to celebrate with the entire team.

During an interview, Ricciardo opened up on how the frustration of missing out on third place on the grid by just 0.029s in Friday qualifying inspired him to seal an eighth grand prix victory.

“I was pretty dark after the qualifying,” Ricciardo said. “Something in me, I was like: I just don't want to be here anymore in terms of like...I want to win, I want to be the guy. Being like close, it just fuelled me more than anything.

“Obviously it [qualifying] was good and the team were: 'it's a good session, you should be happy'. And I appreciate that it was, relative to this year it was a good session, but that's when the competitor in me just really came out.

“I can't even explain it. It was just like something, like a burning feeling inside of me, and I was just like: ‘no, it's not good enough.’

“I was like blinkers on for the rest of the weekend. It's easy to say now because I won. But like, honestly, there was something that came over me, particularly after Friday evening, and I was I guess a man on a mission."

Ricciardo admitted he has been “playing catch up” after starting the season “on the back foot” but has credited a reset over the August summer break for his turnaround in form.

“I've definitely carried confidence through race weekends, and it has been there at moments for sure, but not to that level,” he continued. 

“That was something that hopefully not many can relate to, because it feels kind of primal. But it's why I do it as well.

“I don't just say that to sound cool in front of the camera. It truly is just the other side to me, which, when it does come out, I know that it's so powerful.

“It was like 2014, when I had what you can call the breakthrough year. That's when I got to let those emotions show on track. And that's why it became so powerful for me.”

And Ricciardo is confident he will be able to continue extracting the level of competitiveness he demonstrated at Monza and will not necessarily need to draw on powerful emotions to get the best out of himself.

“I like that kind of fire in me,” he said. "It's kind of like the chip on the shoulder: I like that feeling. It kind of makes you feel alive. And it's a good angry.

“You take a lot of energy from that anger. But after the weekend, I don't think it's like I need to tap into that place all the time to get it out of myself.

“I think I drew a lot of confidence from that weekend, and also the team, I think a lot of them have supported me and believed in me from the start.

“The weekend kind of just reassured everyone, so I think as a team moving forward, we can be quietly confident.”