Ricciardo: Mexico F1 weekend “not written off” despite gearbox issue in practice

Ricciardo spent the majority of second practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the garage after McLaren found an issue with his gearbox.

Even without the issue, McLaren struggled for pace throughout Friday practice in Mexico with teammate Lando Norris only managing 12th in second practice.

Explaining the gearbox issue, Ricciardo said that it "wasn't worth the risk" to return to the track.

“We had an issue, so I came in and there were few checks to go through,” Ricciardo said. “So we could not get back out and it was not worth the risk. I got in a few laps on the hard. Will have to get it all together tomorrow, but we have the morning session to go through.”

Ricciardo remains confident that McLaren can turn its weekend around despite struggling for pace in practice.

“It is definitely not written off yet,” he added. “It gives us more work to do, but it is definitely not out of reach.

“We have some pace to find. Lando’s first run looked a little bit better this afternoon, so we will try and dissect that and see what we can learn.”

Norris enjoyed a smoother day than his  teammate in Mexico, but he was surprised by McLaren’s struggles.

“It has not been a great day for us,” Norris explained. “We struggled a lot in P1, quite a long way off the pace. Definitely turning out to be more difficult than we expected coming here. Our low fuel pace and high fuel pace was quite a long way off today.

“Some work to do overnight to make some improvements. I’m confident that we can do it. We have some good directions to go in from the test we did today.

“Considering how much time we have to find, I hope it is not just a small thing that we can find, but we can find something bigger. It is also an easy thing to find, a lot of lap time. I have faith in the guys. We’ll find a step in the direction.”