Daniel Ricciardo’s two-year stint as a McLaren driver is up, with the Australian returning to the side he knows best for 2023.
Returning to Red Bull is arguably the best option for the 33-year-old, who just didn’t seem to click with the Woking-based outfit.
It wasn’t through a lack of trying, though, with McLaren and Ricciardo having spent considerable time trying to find the ideal set-up to support the fan favourite.
In the end, the pair just couldn’t find a solution, even though, McLaren spent more time at the track than Red Bull did when the Aussie raced for the Austrians.
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With his return to Red Bull as a development driver having been announced, Ricciardo has revealed how the two sides differ in their approach to a Grand Prix, with McLaren having arguably put in “too much effort”.
“I think, from an effort [point of view], it’s the same [approach between the teams],” Ricciardo told the Beyond The Grid podcast.
“I feel like we would stay longer at the track at McLaren, and maybe because we’re trying to find a few more tenths than a Red Bull, especially [during] the last year or two.
“But there’s a lot of attention to detail. We didn’t not get it right because we were all just leaving early and being lazy; it was probably the opposite, where sometimes we probably put too much thought into it and too much effort.
“And then it was like, sometimes you’ve got to get back to basics.”
Ricciardo’s best result for McLaren was, of course, his victory at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, which interestingly came not long after the British side changed their approach.
Whilst this change in style worked momentarily, Ricciardo was still unable to perform consistently, with the duo simply being left to admit that they “didn’t quite succeed” together.
“After the summer break last year, we tried to just strip it back and be like, ‘Okay, maybe there’s too much information. We’re overcomplicating it where I’m driving consciously, as opposed to subconsciously,'” Ricciardo said.
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“I’m thinking through the corner where I should just be doing it, so we did acknowledge that and I think we did make progress, especially [in the] second half of last year.
“Look, if I knew what we didn’t get right as a unit, then I guess we would have found a way. So I can’t be critical of the way we tried to attack it, and we put in hours and hours and really did try to solve the puzzle.
“But I guess on, both sides, we can ultimately now just put our hand up and say, ‘Look, we tried and didn’t quite succeed.'”